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The Cave of Adelsberg, 

From a Sketch by James Skene, Esq., of Rubiftlaw 




















































CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL, 


THE LAST DAYS OF A PHILOSOPHER. 


BY SIB HUMPHRY DAVY, Bart., 

Late President of the Royal Society. 


SIXTH EDITION, WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. 


o 



LONDON: 

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
1853. 



LONDON : 

BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WH1TEFRIARS. 


By Transfer 

Di Ci Public l/ibrafy 

DEC 2 2 1938 


tec 







ADVERTISEMENT TO THE EIETH 
EDITION. 


As is stated in the Preface which follows, this 
work was composed during a period of bodily 
indisposition;—it was concluded at the very 
moment of the invasion of the Author's last illness. 
Had his life been prolonged, it is probable, that 
some additions and some changes would have been 
made. The editor does not consider himself 
warranted to do more than give to the world a 
faithful copy, making only a few omissions and a 
few verbal alterations. The characters of the 
persons of the Dialogue were intended to be ideal, 
at least in great part;—such they should be 
considered- by the reader; and, it is to be hoped, 
that the incidents introduced, as well as the 
persons, will be viewed only as subordinate and 



iv ADVERTISEMENT. 

subservient to the sentiments and doctrines. The 
first edition, which was published in 1830, it may 
be mentioned, was dedicated to that most amiable 
and worthy of men, the late Thomas Poole, Esq., 
of Nether Stowey, then alive, “in remembrance of 
thirty years of continued and faithful friendship 
and as stated in the advertisement to that edition, 
the words were those dictated by the author “at 
a time when he had lost the power of writing, 
except with extreme difficulty, owing to a paralytic 
attack, although he retained in a very remarkable 
manner all his mental faculties unimpaired and 
unclouded.” 

J. D. 


Leskkth How, Ambleside, 
Nov. 27, 1850. 


PEEEACE. 


Salmonia was written during the time of a 
partial recovery from a long and dangerous illness. 
The present work was composed immediately after, 
under the same unfavourable and painful circum¬ 
stances, and at a period when the constitution of 
the author suffered from new attacks. He has 
derived some pleasure and some consolation, when 
most other sources of consolation and pleasure 
were closed to him, from this exercise of his mind; 
and, he ventures to hope that these hours of 
sickness may be not altogether unprofitable to 
persons in perfect health. 


Home, February 21, 1829. 




















































































































































CONTENTS, 


-♦- 

DIALOGUE I. 

i'a*e 

THE VISION. 3 


DIALOGUE II. 

DISCUSSIONS CONNECTED WITH THE VISION IN THE 

COLOSSEUM.66 


DIALOGUE III. 

THE UNKNOWN. 115 


DIALOGUE IV. 

THE PROTEUS, OR IMMORTALITY. 176 


DIALOGUE V. 

THE CHEMICAL PHILOSOPHER. 236 


DIALOGUE VI. 


POLA, OR TIME 


271 





LIST OF ENGRAVINGS. 

- ♦ - 

page 

THE CAVE OF ABELSBERG • • • • Frontispiece. 

COLOSSEUM. 3 

Vesuvius.66 

PiESTUM. 115 

THE AUSTRIAN ALPS FROM GOSAU. 176 

PROTEI.197 

THE TRAUN SEE OR LAKE OF GMUNDEN . . . 236 

POL A. 271 








CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL; 


THE LAST DAYS OF A PHILOSOPHER. 


B 








Colosseum. 


DIALOGUE THE FIRST. 

THE VISION. 

1 passed the autumn and the early winter of the 
years 18— and 18— at Rome. The society was as is 
usual in that metropolis of the old Christian world 
numerous and diversified. In it there were found 
many intellectual foreigners, and amongst them 
some distinguished Britons, who had a higher 
object in making this city their residence than 
mere idleness or vague curiosity. Amongst these 

B 2 






















4 


DIALOGUE I. 


my countrymen there were two gentlemen with 
whom I formed a particular intimacy, and who 
were my frequent companions in the visits which 
I made to the monuments of the grandeur of the 
old Eomans and to the masterpieces of ancient 
and modern art. One of them I shall call Ambrosio. 
He was a man of highly cultivated taste, great 
classical erudition, and minute historical knowledge. 
In religion he was of the Roman Catholic persuasion; 
but a Catholic of the most liberal school, who in 
another age might have been secretary to Ganganelli. 
His views upon the subjects of politics and religion 
were enlarged; but his leaning was rather to the 
power of a single magistrate than to the authority 
of a democracy or even of an oligarchy. The 
other friend, whom I shall call Onuphrio, was a man 
of a very different character. Belonging to the 
English aristocracy, he had some of the prejudices 
usually attached to* birth and rank; but his 
manners were gentle, his temper good, and his 
disposition amiable. Having been partly educated 
at a northern university in Britain, he had adopted 



THE VISION. 


5 


views in religion wliicli went even beyond toleration, 
and which might be regarded as entering the 
verge of scepticism. For a patrician he was very 
liberal in his political views. His imagination 
was poetical and discursive, his taste good, and his 
tact extremely fine,—so exquisite, indeed, that it 
sometimes approached to morbid sensibility and 
disgusted him with slight defects, and made him 
keenly sensible of small perfections to which 
common minds would have been indifferent. 

In the beginning of October, on a very fine 
afternoon, I drove with these two friends to the 
Colosseum, a monument which, for the hundredth 
time even, I had viewed with a new admiration; 
my friends partook of my sentiments. I shall give 
the conversation which occurred there in their own 
words. Onuphrio said, “ How impressive are these 
ruins!—what a character do they give us of the 
ancient Romans, what magnificence of design, what 
grandeur of execution! Had we not historical 
documents to inform us of the period when this 
structure was raised, and of the purposes for which 



6 


DIALOGUE I. 


it was designed, it might be imagined the work of 
a race of giants, a council-chamber for those Titans 
fabled to have warred against the gods of the pagan 
mythology. The size of the masses of travertine 
of which it is composed is in harmony with the 
immense magnitude of the building. It is hardly 
to be wondered at that a people who constructed 
such works for their daily sports, for their usual 
amusements, should have possessed strength, 
enduring energy and perseverance, sufficient to 
enable them to conquer the world. They appear 
always to have formed their plans and made their 
combinations as if their power were beyond the 
reach of chance, independent of the influence 
of time, and founded for unlimited duration—for 
eternity! ” 

Ambrosio took up the discourse of Onuphrio, 
and said, “The aspect of this wonderful heap of 
ruins is so picturesque, that it is impossible to 
regret its decay; and at this season of the year the 
colours of the vegetation are in harmony with those 
of the falling masses; and how perfectly the whole 



THE VISION. 


1 


landscape is in tone! The remains of the palace 
of the Caesars and of the golden halls of Nero 
appear in the distance, their gray and tottering 
turrets and their moss-stained arches reposing, 
as it were, upon the decaying vegetation: and 
there is nothing that marks the existence of life 
except the few pious devotees, who wander from 
station to station in the arena below, kneeling 
before the cross, and demonstrating the triumph of 
a religion, which received in this very spot, in the 
early period of its existence, one of its most severe 
persecutions, and which, nevertheless, has preserved 
what remains of that building, where attempts 
were made to stifle it almost at its birth; for, 
without the influence of Christianity, these majestic 
ruins would have been dispersed or levelled to the 
dust. Plundered of their lead and iron by the 
barbarians, Goths and Yandals, and robbed even 
of their stones by Roman princes, the Barberini, 
they owe what remains of their relics to the 
sanctifying influence of that faith which has 
preserved for the world all that was worth 



8 


DIALOGUE I. 


preserving;—not merely arts and literature, but 
likewise that which constitutes the progressive 
nature of intellect, and the institutions which 
afford to us happiness in this world and hopes of a 
blessed immortality in the next. And, being of the 
faith of Rome, I may say, that the preservation of 
this pile by the sanctifying effect of a few crosses 
planted round it, is almost a miraculous event. 
And what a contrast the present application of 
this building, connected with holy feelings and 
exalted hopes, is to that of the ancient one, when 
it was used for exhibiting to the Roman people the 
destruction of men by wild beasts, or of men, more 
savage than wild beasts, by each other, to gratify 
a horrible appetite for cruelty, founded upon a still 
more detestable lust, that of universal domination! 
And who would have supposed, in the time of Titus, 
that a faith, despised in its insignificant origin, 
and persecuted, from the supposed obscurity of 
its founder and its principles, should have reared 
a dome to the memory of one of its humblest 
teachers, more glorious than was ever framed for 




THE VISION. 


9 


Jupiter or Apollo in the ancient world; and have 
preserved even the ruins of the temples of the 
pagan deities; and have burst forth in splendour 
and majesty, consecrating truth amidst the shrines 
of error; employing the idols of the Eoman 
superstition for the most holy purposes, and rising 
a bright and constant light amidst the dark and 
starless night which followed the destruction of the 
Eoman empire! ” 

Onuphrio now resumed the discourse: he 
said, “ I have not the same exalted views on the 
subject which our friend Ambrosio has so 
eloquently expressed. Some little of the perfect 
state in which these ruins exist may have been 
owing to causes which he has described; but 
these causes have only lately begun to operate, 
and the mischief was done before Christianity 
was established at Eome. Peeling differently on 
these subjects, I admire this venerable ruin 
rather as the record of the destruction of the 
power of the greatest people that ever existed, 
than as a proof of the triumph of Christianity; 



10 


DIALOGUE I. 


and I am carried forward in melancholy anticipa¬ 
tion, to the period when even the magnificent 
dome of St. Peter's will be in a similar state 
to that in which the Colosseum now is, and 
when its ruins may be preserved by the sanctifying 
influence of some new and unknown faith; 
when, perhaps, the statue of Jupiter, which at 
present receives the kiss of the devotee, as the 
image of St. Peter, may be employed for another 
holy use, as the personification of a future saint 
or divinity; and when the monuments of the 
papal magnificence shall be mixed with the 
same dust as that which now covers the tombs 
of the Caesars. Such, I am sorry to say, is the 
general history of all the works and institutions 
belonging to humanity. They rise, flourish, and 
then decay and fall; and the period of their 
decline is generally proportional to that of their 
elevation. In ancient Thebes or Memphis the 
peculiar genius of the people has left us monu¬ 
ments from which we can judge of their arts, 
though we cannot understand the nature of their 



THE VISION. 


11 


superstitions. Of Babylon and of Troy the 
remains are almost extinct; and what we know 
of these famous cities is almost entirely derived 
from literary records. Ancient Greece and Borne 
we view in the few remains of their monuments; 
and the time will arrive when modern Borne shall 
be what ancient Borne now is; and ancient 
Borne and Athens will be what Tyre or Carthage 
now are, known only by coloured dust in the 
desert, or coloured sand, containing the fragments 
of bricks or glass, washed up by the wave of 
a stormy sea. I might pursue these thoughts 
still further, and show that the wood of the 
cross, or the bronze of the statue, decay as 
quickly as if they had not been sanctified; and 
I think I could prove that their influence is owing 
to the imagination which, when infinite time 
is considered, or the course of ages even, is 
null and its effect imperceptible; and similar 
results occur, whether the faith be that of Osiris, 
of Jupiter, of Jehovah, or of Jesus.” 

To this Ambrosio replied, his countenance and 



12 


DIALOGUE I. 


the tones of his voice expressing some emotion: 
“ I do not think, Onuphrio, that you consider this 
question with your usual sagacity or acuteness; 
indeed, I never hear you on the subject of religion 
without pain and without a feeling of regret that 
you have not applied your powerful understanding 
to a more minute and correct examination of the 
evidences of revealed religion. You would then, 
I think, have seen, in the origin, progress, eleva¬ 
tion, decline and fall of the empires of antiquity, 
proofs that they were intended for a definite end 
in the scheme of human redemption: you would 
have found prophecies which have been amply 
verified: and the foundation or the ruin of a 
kingdom, which appears in civil history so great 
an event, in the history of man in his religious 
institutions, as comparatively of small moment: 
you would have found the establishment of the 
worship of one God amongst a despised and con¬ 
temned people as the most important circumstance 
in the records of the early world : you would have 
found the Christian dispensation naturally arising 



THE VISION. 


13 


out of the Jewish and the doctrines of the pagan 
nations, all preparatory to the triumph and final 
establishment of a creed fitted for the most en¬ 
lightened state of the human mind, and equally 
adapted to every climate and every people.” 

To this animated appeal of Ambrosio, Onuphrio 
replied in the most tranquil manner, and with the 
air of an unmoved philosopher:—“You mistake 
me, Ambrosio, if you consider me hostile to 
Christianity. I am not of the school of the Trench 
encyclopaedists, or of the English infidels. I 
consider religion as essential to man, and belonging 
to the human mind, in the same manner as 
instincts belong to the brute creation; a light, if 
you please, of revelation to guide him through the 
darkness of this life, and to keep alive his undying 
hope of immortality: but pardon me if I consider 
this instinct as equally useful in all its different 
forms, and still a divine light through whatever 
medium or cloud of human passion or prejudice 
it passes. I reverence it in the followers of 
Bramah, in the disciple of Mahomet, and I wonder 



14 


DIALOGUE I. 


at it in all the variety of forms it adopts in the 
Christian world. You must not be angry with 
me that I do not allow infallibility to your church, 
having been myself brought up by Protestant 
parents, who were rigidly attached to the doctrines 
of Calvin." 

I saw Ambroses countenance kindle at Onu- 
phrio's explanation of his opinions, and he 
appeared to be meditating an angry reply. I 
endeavoured to change the conversation to the 
state of the Colosseum, with which it had begun. 
“ These ruins," I said, “ as you have both observed, 
are highly impressive; yet when I saw them six 
years ago they had a stronger effect on my 
imagination; whether it was the charm of novelty, 
or that my mind was fresher, or that the circum¬ 
stances under which I saw them were peculiar, I 
know not, but probably all these causes operated 
in affecting my mind. It was a still and beautiful 
evening in the end of May; the last sunbeams 
were dying away in the western sky, and the first 
moonbeams sinning in the eastern; the bright 



THE VISION. 


15 


orange tints lighted up the ruins, and as it were 
kindled the snows that still remained on the distant 
Apennines, which were visible from the highest 
accessible part of the amphitheatre. In this glow 
of colouring, the green of advanced spring softened 
the gray and yellow tints of the decaying stones, 
and as the lights gradually became fainter, the 
masses appeared grander and more gigantic; and 
when the twilight had entirely disappeared, the 
contrast of light and shade in the beams of the full 
moon, and beneath a sky of the brightest sapphire, 
but so highly illuminated that only Jupiter and a 
few stars of the first magnitude were visible, gave 
a solemnity and magnificence to the scene which 
awakened the highest degree of that emotion which 
is so properly termed the sublime. The beauty 
and the permanency of the heavens and the prin¬ 
ciple of conservation belonging to the system of 
the universe, the works of the Eternal and Divine 
Architect, were finely opposed to the perishing and 
degraded works of man in his most active and 
powerful state. And at this moment so humble 



16 


DIALOGUE I. 


appeared to me the condition of the most exalted 
beings belonging to the earth, so feeble their 
combination, so minute the point of space, anjl so 
limited the period of time in which they act, that 
I could hardly avoid comparing the generations 
of man, and the effects of his genius and power, to 
the swarms of luceoli or fire-flies which were 
dancing around me, and that appeared flitting and 
sparkling amidst the gloom and darkness of the 
ruins, but which were no longer visible when they 
rose above the horizon, their feeble light being 
lost and utterly obscured in the brightness of the 
moonbeams in the heavens.” 

Onuphrio said: “I am not sorry that you 
have changed the conversation. You have given 
us the history of a most interesting recollection, 
and well expressed a solemn though humiliating 
feeling. In such moments, and among such scenes, 
it is impossible not to be struck with the nothing¬ 
ness of human glory and the transiency of human 
works. This, one of the greatest monuments on 
the face of the earth, was raised by a people, then 



THE VISION 


17 


its masters, only seventeen centuries ago. In a few 
ages more it will be but as dust. And of all the 
testimonials of the vanity or power of man, whether 
raised to immortalise his name, or to contain his 
decaying bones without a name, no one is known 
to have a duration beyond what is measured by the 
existence of a hundred generations; and it is only 
to multiply centuple for instance the period of time, 
and the memorials of a village and the monuments 
of a country churchyard may be compared with 
those of an empire and the remains of the world.” 

Ambrosio, to whom the conversation seemed 
disagreeable, put us in mind of an engagement 
we had made to spend the evening at the conver¬ 
sazione of a celebrated lady, and proposed to call 
the carriage. The reflections which the conversa¬ 
tion and the scene had left in my mind little 
disposed me for general society. I requested them 
to keep their engagement, and said I was resolved 
to spend an hour amidst the solitude of the ruins, 
and desired them to send back the carriage for 
me. They left me, expressing a hope that my 



18 


DIALOGUE I. 


poetical or melancholy fancy might not be the 
occasion of a cold, and wished me the company 
of some of the spectres of the ancient Eomans. 

When I was left alone, I seated myself in the 
moonshine, on one of the steps leading to the seats 
supposed to have been occupied by the patricians 
in the Colosseum at the time of the public games. 
The train of ideas in which I had indulged before 
my friends left me continued to flow with a vivid¬ 
ness and force increased by the stillness and solitude 
of the scene; and the full moon which has always 
a peculiar effect on these moods of feeling in my 
mind, gave to them a wildness and a kind of 
indefinite sensation, such as I suppose belong at 
all times to the true poetical temperament. It 
must be so, I thought to myself;—no new city 
will rise again out of the double ruins of this; 
—no new empire will be founded upon these 
colossal remains of that of the old Eomans. 
The world, like the individual, flourishes in youth, 
rises to strength in manhood, falls into decay in 
age; and the ruins of an empire are like the 



THE VISION. 


19 


decrepit frame of an individual, except that they 
have some tints of beauty which nature bestows 
upon them. The sun of civilisation arose in the 
East, advanced towards the West, and is now at 
its meridian;—in a few centuries more it will 
probably be seen sinking below the horizon even 
in the new world, and there will be left darkness 
only where there is a bright light, deserts of 
sand where there were populous cities, and stag¬ 
nant morasses where the green meadow or the 
bright corn-field once appeared. I called up 
images of this kind in my imagination. “ Time,” 
I said, "which purifies, and as it were sanctifies 
the mind, destroys and brings into utter decay the 
body; and, even in nature, its influence seems 
always degrading. She is represented by the 
poets as eternal in her youth, but amongst these 
ruins she appears to me eternal in her age, and 
here no traces of renovation appear in the ancient 
of days.” I had scarcely concluded this ideal 
sentence, when my reverie became deeper, the 
ruins surrounding me appeared to vanish from 



20 


DIALOGUE I. 


my sight, the light of the moon became more 
intense, and the orb itself seemed to expand in a 
flood of splendour. At the same time that my 
visual organs appeared so singularly affected, the 
most melodious sounds filled my ear, softer, yet at 
the same time deeper and fuller, than I had ever 
heard in the most harmonious and perfect concert. 
It appeared to me that I had entered a new 
state of existence, and I was so perfectly lost in 
the new kind of sensation which I experienced, 
that I had no recollections and no perceptions of 
identity. On a sudden the music ceased, but the 
brilliant light still continued to surround me, and 
I heard a low but extremely distinct and sweet 
voice, which appeared to issue from the centre of 
it. The sounds were at first musical like those 
of a harp, but they soon became articulate, as if a 
prelude to some piece of sublime poetical com¬ 
position. “You, like all your brethren,” said 
the voice, “are entirely ignorant of everything 
belonging to yourselves, the world you inhabit, 
your future destinies, and the scheme of the 



THE VISION . 


21 


universe; and yet you have the folly to believe 
you are acquainted with the past, the present, 
and the future. I am an intelligence somewhat 
superior to you, though there are millions of beings 
as much above me in power and in intellect as 
man is above the meanest and weakest reptile that 
crawls beneath his feet;—yet something I can 
teach yon : yield your mind wholly to the influence 
which I shall exert upon it, and you shall be 
undeceived in your views of the history of the 
world, and of the system you inhabit.” At this 
moment the bright light disappeared, the sweet 
and harmonious voice, which was the only proof 
of the presence of a superior intelligence, ceased; 
I was in utter darkness and silence, and seemed 
to myself to be carried rapidly upon a stream of air, 
without any other sensation than that of moving 
quickly through space. Whilst I was still in 
motion, a dim and hazy light, which seemed like 
that of twilight in a rainy morning, broke upon 
my sight, and gradually a country displayed itself 
to my view covered with forests and marshes. 



22 


DIALOGUE I. 


I saw wild animals grazing in large savannahs, 
and carnivorous beasts, such as lions and tigers, 
occasionally disturbing and destroying them. I 
saw naked savages feeding upon wild fruits, or 
devouring shellfish, or fighting with clubs for 
the remains of a whale which had been thrown 
upon the shore. I observed that they had no 
habitations, that they concealed themselves in caves, 
or under the shelter of palm trees, and that the 
only delicious food which nature seemed to have 
given to them was the date and the cocoa-nut, 
and these were in very small quantities and the 
object of contention. I saw that some few of 
these wretched human beings that inhabited the 
wide waste before my eyes, had weapons pointed 
with flint or fish bone, which they made use of 
for destroying birds, quadrupeds, or fishes, that 
they fed upon raw; but their greatest delicacy 
appeared to be a maggot or worm, which they 
sought for with great perseverance in the buds of 
the palm. When I cast my eyes on the varied 
features of this melancholy scene, which was 



THE VISION 


23 


now lighted by a rising sun, I heard again the 
same voice wliich had astonished me in the 
Colosseum, and which said,—“See the birth of 
Time! Look at man in his newly created state, 
full of youth and vigour. Do you see aught in 
this state to admire or envy P ” As the last words 
fell on my ear, I was again, as before, rapidly 
put in motion, and I seemed again resistless to 
be hurried upon a stream of air, and again in perfect 
darkness. In a moment, an indistinct light again 
appeared before my eyes and a country opened 
upon my view wliich appeared partly wild and 
partly cultivated; there were fewer woods and 
morasses than in the scene wliich I had just before 
seen; I beheld men who were covered with the 
skins of animals, and who were driving cattle to 
enclosed pastures; I saw others who were reaping 
and collecting corn, others who were making it into 
bread; I saw cottages furnished with many of the 
conveniences of life, and a people in that state of 
agricultural and pastoral improvement which has 
been imagined by the poets as belonging to the 



24 


DIALOGUE I. 


golden age. The same voice., which I shall call 
that of the Genius, said,—"Look at these groups 
of men who are escaped from the state of infancy: 
they owe their improvement to a few superior 
minds still amongst them. That aged man whom 
you see with a crowd around him taught them 
to build cottages; from that other they learnt to 
domesticate cattle; from others to collect and sow 
corn and seeds of fruit. And these arts will never 
be lost; another generation will see them more 
perfect; the houses, in a century more, will be 
larger and more convenient; the flocks of cattle 
more numerous; the corn-fields more extensive; 
the morasses will be drained, the number of fruit- 
trees increased. You shall be shown other visions 
of the passages of time, but as you are carried 
along the stream which flows from the period of 
creation to the present moment’ I shall only arrest 
your transit to make you observe some circum¬ 
stances which will demonstrate the truths I wish 
you to know, and which will explain to you the 
little it is permitted me to miderstand of the 



THE VISION. 


25 


scheme of the universe.” I again found myself 
in darkness and in motion and I was again arrested 
by the opening of a new scene upon my eyes. I 
shall describe this scene and the others in the 
succession in which they appeared before me, and 
the observations by which they were accompanied 
in the voice of the wonderful being who appeared 
as my intellectual guide. In the scene wdiich 
followed that of the agricultural or pastoral people, 
I saw a great extent of cultivated plains, large 
cities on the sea shore, palaces, forums, and 
temples ornamenting them; men associated in 
groups, mounted on horses, and performing military 
exercises; galleys moved by oars on the ocean; 
roads intersecting the country covered with travellers 
and containing carriages moved by men or horses. 
The Genius now said, “You see the early state 
of civilisation of man; the cottages of the last 
race you beheld have become improved into stately 
dwellings, palaces, and temples, in which use is 
combined with ornament. The few men to whom, 
as I said before, the foundations of these improve- 



26 


DIALOGUE I ; 


ments were owing, have had divine honours 
paid to their memory. But look at the instru¬ 
ments belonging to this generation, and you will 
find that they are only of brass. You see men 
who are talking to crowds around them, and 
others who are apparently amusing listening groups 
by a kind of song or recitation; these are the 
earliest bards and orators; but all their signs of 
thought are oral, for written language does not 
yet exist.” The next scene which appeared was 
one of varied business and imagery. I saw a man, 
who bore in his hands the same instruments as 
our modern smith’s, presenting a vase, which 
appeared to be made of iron, amidst the acclamations 
of an assembled multitude engaged in triumphal 
procession before the altars dignified by the name 
of Apollo at Delphi; and I saw in the same place 
men who carried rolls of papyrus in their hands 
and wrote upon them with reeds containing ink 
made from the soot of wood mixed with a solution 
of glue. “See,” the Genius said, “an immense 
change produced in the condition of society by the 



THE VISION. 


27 


two arts of which you here see the origin; the 
one, that of rendering iron malleable, which is 
owing to a single individual, an obscure Greek; 
the other, that of making thought permanent in 
written characters, an art which has gradually 
arisen from the hieroglyphics which you may 
observe on yonder pyramids. You will now see 
human life more replete with power and activity.” 
Again, another scene broke upon my vision. I 
saw the bronze instruments, which had belonged 
to the former state of society, thrown away; 
malleable iron converted into hard steel, this steel 
applied to a thousand purposes of civilised life; I 
saw bands of men who made use of it for defensive 
armour and for offensive weapons; I saw these 
iron-clad men, in small numbers, subduing 
thousands of savages, and establishing amongst 
them their arts and institutions; I saw a few 
men, on the eastern shores of Europe, resisting, 
with the same materials, the united forces of 
Asia; I saw a chosen band die in defence of their 
country, overcome by an army a thousand times as 



28 


DIALOGUE I. 


numerous; and I saw this same army, in its 
turn, caused to disappear, and destroyed or driven 
from the shores of Europe by the brethren of 
that band of martyred patriots; I saw bodies of 
these men traversing the sea, founding colonies, 
building cities, and wherever they established 
themselves, carrying with them their peculiar arts. 
Towns and temples arose containing schools, and 
libraries filled with the rolls of the papyrus. 
The same steel, such a tremendous instrument of 
power in the hands of the warrior, I saw applied, 
by the genius of the artist, to strike forms even 
more perfect than those of life out of the rude 
marble; and I saw the walls of the palaces and 
temples covered with pictures, in which historical 
events were pourtrayed with the truth of nature and 
the poetry of mind. The voice now awakened 
my attention, by saying, “You have now before 
you the vision of that state of society which is an 
object of admiration to the youth of modern times, 
and the recollections of which, and the precepts 
founded on these recollections, constitute an im- 



THE VISION. 


29 


portant part of your education. Your maxims 
of war and policy, your taste in letters and the 
arts, are derived from models left by that people, 
or by their immediate imitators, whom you shall 
now see.” I opened my eyes, and recognised 
the very spot in which I was sitting when the 
vision commenced. I was on the top of an arcade, 
under a silken canopy, looking down upon the 
tens of thousands of people, who were crowded 
in the seats of the Colosseum, ornamented with all 
the spoils that the wealth of a world can give; I 
saw in the arena below animals of the most extra¬ 
ordinary kind, and which have rarely been seen living 
in modern Europe, the giraffe, the zebra, the 
rhinoceros and the ostrich from the deserts of 
Africa beyond the Niger, the hippopotamus from 
the upper Nile, and the royal tiger and the gnu 
from the banks of the Ganges. Looking over 
Rome, which, in its majesty of palaces and temples 
and in its colossal aqueducts bringing water even 
from the snows of the distant Apennines, seemed 
more like the creation of a supernatural power than 



30 


DIALOGUE I. 


the work of human hands; looking over Eorne to 
the distant landscape, I saw the whole face as it 
were of the ancient world adorned with miniature 
images of this splendid metropolis. Where the 
Eoman conquered, there he civilised; where he 
carried his arms, there he fixed likewise his house¬ 
hold gods; and from the deserts of Arabia to the 
mountains of Caledonia there appeared but one 
people, having the same arts, language and letters, 
all of Grecian origin. I looked again, and saw 
an entire change in the brilliant aspect of this 
Eoman world; the people of conquerors and heroes 
was no longer visible; the cities were filled with 
an idle and luxurious population; those farms 
which had been cultivated by warriors, who left the 
plough to take the command of armies, were now 
in the hands of slaves; and the militia of free men 
were supplanted by bands of mercenaries, who sold 
the empire to the highest bidder. I saw immense 
masses of warriors collecting in the north and east, 
carrying with them no other proofs of cultivation 
but their horses and steel arms; I saw these 



THE VISION. 


31 


savages everywhere attacking this mighty empire, 
plundering cities, laying waste the monuments of arts 
and literature, and, like wild beasts devouring a 
noble animal, tearing into pieces and destroying the 
Boman power. Buin, desolation, and darkness 
were before me, and I closed my eyes to avoid the 
melancholy scene. "See,” said the Genius, "the 
melancholy termination of a power believed by its 
founders invincible, and intended to be eternal. 
But you will find, though the glory and greatness 
belonging to its military genius have passed away, 
yet those belonging to the arts and institutions, by 
which it adorned and dignified life, will again arise 
in another state of society.” I opened my eyes 
again, and I saw Italy recovering from her desola¬ 
tion ; towns arising with governments almost upon 
the model of ancient Athens and Borne, and these 
different small states rivals in arts and arms; I 
saw the remains of libraries, which had been 
preserved in monasteries and churches by a holy 
influence which even the Goth and Yandal respected, 
again opened to the people; I saw Borne rising 



32 


DIALOGUE I. 


from her ashes, the fragments of statues fomid 
amidst the ruins of her palaces and the imperial 
villas becoming models for the regeneration of art; 
I saw magnificent temples raised in this city become 
the metropolis of a new and Christian world and 
ornamented with the most brilliant master-pieces 
of the arts of design; I saw a Tuscan city, as it 
were, contending with Rome for pre-eminence in the 
productions of genius; and the spirit awakened in 
Italy spreading its influence from the south to the 
north. “Now,” the Genius said, “society has 
taken its modern and permanent aspect. Consider 
for a moment its relations to letters and to arms 
as contrasted with those of the ancient world.” 
I looked, and saw, that in the place of the rolls 
of papyrus, libraries were now filled with books. 
“ Behold ” the Genius said, “ the printing press ; 
by the invention of Faust the productions of genius 
are, as it were, made imperishable, capable of 
indefinite multiplication, and rendered an unalien¬ 
able heritage of the human mind. By this art, 
apparently so humble, the progress of society is 



THE VISION. 


33 


secured, and man is spared the humiliation of 
witnessing again scenes like those which followed 
the destruction of the Roman empire. Now look 
to the warriors of modern times; you see the 
spear, the javelin, the shield and the cuirass, are 

The Ga^nan monlRdl&ioVered gunpowder, did 
not meanly afE&tff file de^tlSiQ^ of manlJnd ; wars 
are beco^^k^^oody b^beco^i^^ss personal, 
mere brutal of comparatively 

little avail; all the resources of civilisation are 
required to maintain and move a large army; 
wealth, ingenuity and perseverance, become the 
principal elements of success; civilised man is 
rendered in consequence infinitely superior to the 
savage, and gunpowder gives permanence to his 
triumph, and secures the cultivated nations from 
ever being again overrun by the inroads of 
millions of barbarians. There is so much identity 
of feature in the character of the two or three- 
centuries that are just passed, that I wish you only 
to take a very transient view of the political 




34 


DIALOGUE I. 


and military events belonging to them. You 
will find attempts made by the chiefs of certain 
great nations to acquire predominance and empire; 
you will see those attempts, after being partially 
successful, resisted by other nations, and the 
balance of power, apparently for a moment broken, 
again restored. Amongst the rival nations that 
may be considered as forming the republic of 
modern Europe, you will see one pre-eminent for 
her maritime strength and colonial and commercial 
enterprise, and you will find she retains her 
superiority only because it is favourable to the 
liberty of mankind. But you must not yet suffer 
the vision of modern Europe to pass from your 
eyes without viewing some other results of the 
efforts of men of genius, which, like those of 
gunpowder and the press, illustrate the times to 
which they belong and form brilliant epochs in the 
history of the world. If you look back into the 
schools of regenerated Italy, you will see in them 
the works of the Greek masters of philosophy, and 
if you attend to the science taught in them you 



THE VISION. 


35 


will find it vague, obscure, and full of erroneous 
notions: you will find in this early period of 
improvement branches of philosophy even applied to 
purposes of delusion, the most sublime of the 
departments of human knowledge, astronomy, 
abused by impostors, who, from the aspect of the 
planetary world pretended to predict the fortunes 
and destinies of individuals: you will see in the 
laboratories alchemists searching for an universal 
medicine, an elixir of life, and for the philosopher's 
stone, or a method of converting all metals into 
gold. But unexpected and useful discoveries you 
will find even in this age arise amidst the clouds of 
deception and the smoke of the furnace; delusion 
and error vanish and pass away, and truths seized 
upon by a few superior men become permanent, 
and the property of an enlightening world. 
Amongst the personages who belong to this early 
period, there are two whom I must request you 
to notice, one an Englishman who pointed out the 
paths to the discovery of scientific truths, and the 
other a Tuscan, who afforded the happiest experi- 



36 


DIALOGUE /. 


mental illustrations of the speculative views of his 
brother in science. You will see academies formed 
a century later in Italy, Prance, and Britain, in 
which the sciences are enlarged by new and varied 
experiments, and the true system of the universe 
developed by an illustrious Englishman, taught and 
explained. The practical results of the progress 
of physics, chemistry, and mechanics, are of the 
most marvellous kind, and to make them all 
distinct would require a comparison of ancient and 
modern states. Ships that were moved by human 
labour in the ancient world are transported by 
the winds; and a piece of steel, touched by the 
magnet, points to the mariner his unerring course 
from the old to the new world; and by the exertions 
of one man of genius, aided by the resources of 
chemistry, a power which, by the old philosophers 
could hardly have been imagined, has been gene¬ 
rated and applied to almost all the machinery 
of active life. The steam-engine performs not 
only the labour of horses, but of man, by combina¬ 
tions which appear almost possessed of intelligence; 



THE VISION. 


37 


waggons are moved by it, constructions made, 
vessels caused to perform voyages in opposition 
to wind and tide, and a power placed in human 
hands which seems almost unlimited. To these 
novel and still extending improvements may be 
added others, which, though of a secondary kind, 
yet materially affect the comforts of life, such as 
the collecting from fossil materials the elements of 
combustion, and applying them so as to illumi¬ 
nate, by a single operation, houses, streets, and 
even cities. If you look to the results of chemical 
arts, you will find new substances of the most 
extraordinary nature applied to various novel 
purposes; you will find a few experiments in 
electricity leading to the marvellous result of 
disarming the thunder-cloud of its terrors, and 
you will see new instruments created by human 
ingenuity, possessing the same powers as the 
electrical organs of living animals. To whatever 
part of the vision of modern times you cast your 
eyes you will find marks of superiority and im¬ 
provement. And I wish to impress upon you the 



38 


DIALOGUE I. 


conviction, that the results of intellectual labour, 
or of scientific genius, are permanent and incapable 
of being lost. Monarchs change their plans, 
governments their objects, a fleet or an army effect 
their purpose and then pass away; but a piece 
of steel touched by the magnet, preserves its cha¬ 
racter for ever, and secures to man the dominion 
of the trackless ocean. A new period of society 
may send armies from the shores of the Baltic to 
those of the Euxine, and the empire of the followers 
of Mahomet may be broken in pieces by a 
northern people, and the dominion of the Britons 
in Asia may share the fate of that of Tamerlane 
or Zengiskhan; but the steam-boat which ascends 
the Delaware or the St. Lawrence will continue to 
be used, and will carry the civilisation of an 
improved people into the deserts of North America 
and into the wilds of Canada. In the common his¬ 
tory of the world, as compiled by authors in 
general, almost all the great changes of nations 
are confounded with changes in their dynasties, 
and events are usually referred either to sovereigns. 



THE VISION. 


39 


chiefs, heroes, or their armies, which do, in fact, 
originate from entirely different causes, either of 
an intellectual or moral nature. Governments 
depend far more than is generally supposed upon 
the opinion of the people and the spirit of the age 
and nation. It sometimes happens that a gigantic 
mind possesses supreme power and rises superior 
to the age in which he is born, such was Alfred in 
England and Peter in Eussia; but such instances 
are very rare ; and, in general, it is neither amongst 
sovereigns nor the higher classes of society, 
that the great improvers or benefactors of mankind 
are to be found. The works of the most illustrious 
names were little valued at the times when they 
were produced, and their authors either despised 
or neglected; and great, indeed, must have been 
the pure and abstract pleasure resulting from the 
exertion of intellectual superiority and the discovery 
of truth and the bestowing benefits and blessings 
upon society, which induced men to sacrifice all 
their co mm on enjoyments and all their privi¬ 
leges as citizens, to these exertions. Anaxagoras, 




40 


DIALOGUE I. 


Archimedes, Roger Bacon, Galileo Galilei, in their 
deaths or their imprisonments, offer instances of 
this kind, and nothing can be more striking than 
what appears to have been the ingratitude of men 
towards their greatest benefactors; but hereafter, 
when you understand more of the scheme of the 
universe, you will see the cause and the effect of 
this, and you will find the whole system governed 
by principles of immutable justice. I have said 
that in the progress of society, all great and real 
improvements are perpetuated; the same corn 
which, four thousand years ago, was raised from 
an improved grass by an inventor worshipped for 
two thousand years in the ancient world under 
the name of Ceres, still forms the principal food 
of mankind; and the potato, perhaps the greatest 
benefit that the old has derived from the new 
world, is spreading over Europe, and will continue 
to nourish an extensive population when the name 
of the race by whom it was first cultivated in 
South America is forgotten. 

“ I will now call your attention to some remark- 



THE VISION. 


41 


able laws belonging to the history of society, and 
from the consideration of which you will be able 
gradually to develop the higher and more exalted 
principles of being. There appears nothing more 
accidental than the sex of an infant, yet take any 
great city or any province, and you will find that 
the relations of males and females are unalterable. 
Again, a part of the pure air of the atmosphere 
is continually consumed in combustion and respira¬ 
tion ; living vegetables emit this principle during 
their growth; nothing appears more accidental 
than the proportion of vegetable to animal life on 
the surface of the earth, yet they are perfectly 
equivalent, and the balance of the sexes, like the 
constitution of the atmosphere, depends upon the 
principles of an unerring intelligence. You saw, 
in the decline of the Roman empire, a people 
enfeebled by luxury, worn out by excess, overrun 
by rude warriors; you saw the giants of the 
North and East mixing with the pigmies of the 
South and West. An empire was destroyed, but 
the seeds of moral and physical improvement in 



42 


DIALOGUE I. 


the new race were sown; the new population 
resulting from the alliances of the men of the 
North with the women of the South was more 
vigorous, more full of physical power, and more 
capable of intellectual exertion than their appa¬ 
rently ill-suited progenitors. And, the moral 
effects or final causes of the migration of races, 
the plans of conquest and ambition which have led 
to revolutions and changes of kingdoms designed 
by man for such different objects, have been the 
same in their ultimate results,—that of improving 
by mixture the different families of men. An 
Alaric or an Attila, who marches with legions of 
barbarians for some gross view of plunder or 
ambition, is an instrument of divine power to effect 
a purpose of which he is wholly unconscious,—he 
is carrying a strong race to improve a weak one, 
and giving energy to a debilitated people; 
and the deserts he makes in his passage will 
become in another age cultivated fields, and the 
solitude he produces will be succeeded by a 
powerful and healthy population. The results of 



THE VISION. 


43 


these events in the moral and political world may 
be compared to those produced in the vegetable 
kingdom by the storms and heavy gales so usual at 
the vernal equinox, the time of the formation of 
the seed; the pollen or farina of one flower is 
thrown upon the pistil of another, and the crossing 
of varieties of plants so essential to the perfection 
of the vegetable world produced. In man, moral 
causes and physical ones modify each other; the 
transmission of hereditary qualities to offspring is 
distinct in the animal world, and in the case 
of disposition to disease is sufficiently obvious 
in the human being. But it is likewise a general 
principle, that powers or habits acquired by 
cultivation are transmitted to the next generation 
and exalted or perpetuated. The history of particular 
races of men affords distinct proofs of this. The 
Caucasian stock has always preserved its superiority, 
whilst the negro or flat-nosed race has always been 
marked for want of intellectual power and capacity 
for the arts of life. This last race, in fact, has 
never been cultivated, and a hundred generations. 



44 


DIALOGUE 1. 


successively improved, would be required to bring 
it to the state in which the Caucasian race was 
at the time of the formation of the Greek republics. 
The principle of the improvement of the charac¬ 
ter of races by the transmission of hereditary 
qualities has not escaped the observations of the 
legislators of the ancient people. By the divine 
law of Moses, the Israelites were enjoined to preserve 
the purity of their blood, and there was no higher 
crime than that of forming alliances with the 
idolatrous nations surrounding them. The Bramins 
of Hindostan have established, upon the same 
principle, the law of caste, by which certain 
professions were made hereditary. In this warm 
climate, where labour is so oppressive, to secure 
perfection in any series of operations, it seems 
essential to strengthen the powers by the forces 
acquired from this principle of hereditary descent. 
It will at first, perhaps, strike your mind, that 
the mixing or blending of races is in direct 
opposition to this principle of perfection; but here 
I must require you to pause and consider the 



THE VISION. 


45 


nature of the qualities belonging to the human 
being. Excess of a particular power, which in 
itself is a perfection, becomes a defect; the organs 
of touch may be so refined as to show a diseased 
sensibility; the ear may become so exquisitely 
sensitive as to be more susceptible to the uneasiness 
produced by discords than to the pleasures of 
harmony. In the nations which have been long 
civilised, the defects are generally those dependent 
on excess of sensibility,—defects which are cured 
in the next generation by the strength and power 
belonging to a ruder tribe. In looking back upon 
the vision of ancient history, you will find that 
there never has been an instance of a migration 
to any extent of any race but the Caucasian, and 
they have usually passed from the North to the 
South. The negro race has always been driven 
before these conquerors of the world; and the red 
men, the aborigines of America, are constantly 
diminishing in number, and it is probable that 
in a few centuries more their pure blood will be 
entirely extinct. In the peopling of the world, 



46 


DIALOGUE I. 


the great object is evidently to produce organised 
frames most capable of the happy and intellectual 
enjoyment of life,—to raise man above the mere 
animal state. To perpetuate the advantages of civili¬ 
sation, the races most capable of these advantages 
are preserved and extended, and no considerable 
improvement made by an individual is ever lost 
to society. You see living forms perpetuated in 
the series of ages, and apparently the quantity of 
life increased. In comparing the population of 
the globe as it now is with what it was centuries 
ago, you will find it considerably greater; and if 
the quantity of life is increased, the quantity of 
happiness, particularly that resulting from the 
exercise of intellectual power, is increased in a 
still higher ratio. Now, you will say, is mind 
generated , is spiritual power created ; or, are those 
results dependent upon the organisation of matter, 
upon new perfections given to the machinery 
upon which thought and motion depend? I 
proclaim to you," said the Genius, raising his 
voice from its low and sweet tone to one of 



THE VISION. 


47 


ineffable majesty, “ neither of these opinions 
are true. Listen, whilst I reveal to you the 
mysteries of spiritual natures, but I almost fear 
that with the mortal veil of your senses surrounding 
you, these mysteries can never be made perfectly 
intelligible to your mind. Spiritual natures are 
eternal and indivisible, but their modes of being 
are as infinitely varied as the forms of matter. 
They have no relation to space, and, in their 
transitions, no dependence upon time, so that they 
can pass from one part of the universe to another 
by laws entirely independent of their motion. 
The quantity, or the number of spiritual essences, 
like the quantity or number of the atoms of the 
material world, are always the same; but their 
arrangements, like those of the materials which 
they are destined to guide or govern are infinitely 
diversified; they are, in fact, parts more or less 
inferior of the infinite Mind, and in the planetary 
systems,—to one of which this globe you inhabit 
belongs,—are in a state of probation, continually 
aiming at, and generally rising to, a higher state 



48 


DIALOGUE I. 


of existence. Were it permitted me to extend 
your vision to the fates of individual existences, 
I could show you the same spirit, which, in 
the form of Socrates, developed the foundations 
of moral and social virtue, in the Czar Peter 
possessed of supreme power and enjoying exalted 
felicity in improving a rude people. I could show 
you the monad or spirit, which, with the organs 
of Newton, displayed an intelligence almost above 
humanity, now in a higher and better state of 
planetary existence drinking intellectual light from 
a purer source and approaching nearer to the 
infinite and divine Mind. But prepare your mind 
and you shall at least catch a glimpse of those 
states, which the highest intellectual beings that 
have belonged to the earth enjoy after death, in 
their transition to new and more exalted natures." 
The voice ceased, and I appeared in a dark, deep 
and cold cave, of which the walls of the Colosseum 
formed the boundary. Prom above, a bright and 
rosy light broke into this cave, so that whilst below 
all was dark, above all was bright and illuminated 



THE VISION. 


49 


with glory. I seemed possessed at this moment 
of a new sense and felt that the light brought with 
it a genial warmth; odours like those of the most 
balmy flowers appeared to fill the air, and the 
sweetest sounds of music absorbed my sense of 
hearing • my limbs had a new lightness given to 
them, so that I seemed to rise from the earth, 
and to mount gradually into the bright luminous 
air, leaving behind me the dark and cold cavern 
and the ruins with which it was strewed. Language 
is inadequate to describe what I felt in rising 
continually upwards through this bright and lumi¬ 
nous atmosphere. I had not, as is generally the 
case with persons in dreams of this kind, imagined 
to myself wings, but I rose gently and securely 
as if I were myself a part of the ascending column 
of light. By degrees this luminous atmosphere, 
which was diffused over the whole of space, 
became more circumscribed, and extended only 
to a limited spot around me. I saw through it 
the bright blue sky, the moon and stars, and I 
passed by them as if it were in my power to 



50 


DIALOGUE I. 


touch them with my hand; I beheld Jupiter 
and Saturn as they appear through our best 
telescopes, but still more magnified, all the moons 
and belts of Jupiter being perfectly distinct, and 
the double ring of Saturn appearing in that state 
in which I have heard Herschel often express a 
wish he could see it. It seemed as if* I were 
on the verge of the solar system, and my moving 
sphere of light now appeared to pause. I again 
heard the low and sweet voice of the Genius, 
which said, “You are now on the verge of your 
own system: will you go farther, or return to 
the earth?” I replied, “I have left an abode 
which is damp, dreary, dark and cold; I am now 
in a place where all is life, light, and enjoyment; 
show me at least, before I return, the glimpse 
winch you promised me of those superior intellectual 
natures and the modes of their being and their 
enjoyments.” “There are creatures far superior,” 
said the Genius, “ to any idea your imagination 
can form in that part of the system now before you, 
comprehending Saturn, his moons and rings. I will 



THE VISION. 


51 


carry you to the verge of the immense atmosphere 
of this planet; in that space you will see sufficient 
to wonder at, and far more than with your present 
organisation, it would be possible for me to 
make you understand.” I was again in motion 
and again almost as suddenly at rest, I saw below 
me a surface infinitely diversified, something like 
that of an immense glacier covered with large 
columnar masses, which appeared as if formed 
of glass, and from which were suspended rounded 
forms of various sizes, which, if they had not been 
transparent, I might have supposed to be fruit. 
From what appeared to me to be analogous to 
masses of bright blue ice, streams of the richest 
tint of rose-colour or purple burst forth and flowed 
into basins, forming lakes or seas of the same 
colour. Looking through the atmosphere towards 
the heavens I saw brilliant opaque clouds of an 
azure colour that reflected the light of the sun, 
which had to my eyes an entirely new aspect, and 
appeared smaller, as if seen through a dense blue 
mist. I saw moving on the surface below me 



52 


DIALOGUE I. 


immense masses, the forms of which I find it 
impossible to describe; they had systems for 
locomotion similar to those of the morse, or 
sea-horse; but I saw with great surprise that they 
moved from place to place by six extremely thin 
membranes, which they used as wings. Their 
colours were varied and beautiful, but principally 
azure and rose-colour; I saw numerous convolu¬ 
tions of tubes, more analogous to the trunk of 
the elephant than to anything else I can imagine, 
occupying what I supposed to be the upper 
parts of the body, and my feeling of astonishment 
almost became one of disgust, from the peculiar 
character of the organs of these singular beings; 
and it was with a species of terror that I observed 
one of them mounting upwards apparently flying 
towards those opaque clouds which I have before 
mentioned. "I know what your feelings are/' 
said the Genius: “you want analogies and all 
the elements of knowledge to comprehend the 
scene before you. You are in the same state in 
which a fly would be whose microscopic eye was 



THE VISION. 


53 


changed for one similar to that of man; and 
you are wholly unable to associate what you now 
see with your former knowledge. But, those 
beings who are before you, and who appear to you 
almost as imperfect in their functions as the 
zoophytes of the polar sea, to which they are not 
unlike in their apparent organisation to your eyes, 
have a sphere of sensibility and intellectual 
enjoyment far superior to that of the inhabitants 
of your earth. Each of those tubes which appears 
like the trunk of an elephant, is an organ of peculiar 
motion or sensation. They have many modes of 
perception of which you are wholly ignorant, at the 
same time that their sphere of vision is infinitely 
more extended than yours, and their organs of touch 
far more perfect and exquisite. It would be useless 
for me to attempt to explain their organisation, 
which you could never understand; but of their 
intellectual objects of pursuit I may perhaps give 
you some notion. They have used, modified and 
applied the material world in a manner analogous 
to Man; but with far superior powers they 



54 


DIALOGUE I. 


have gained superior results. Their atmosphere 
being much denser than yours and the specific 
gravity of their planet less, they have been 
enabled to determine the laws belonging to the 
solar system with far more accuracy than you can 
possibly conceive, and any one of these beings 
could show you what is now the situation and 
appearance of your moon with a precision that 
would induce you to believe that he saw it, though 
his knowledge is merely the result of calculation. 
Their sources of pleasure are of the highest 
intellectual nature. With the magnificent spectacle 
of their own rings and moons revolving round 
them,—with the various combinations required to 
understand and predict the relations of these 
wonderful phenomena, their minds are in unceasing 
activity, and this activity is a perpetual source 
of enjoyment. Your view of the solar system 
is bounded by Uranus, and the laws of this planet 
form the ultimatum of your mathematical results; 
but these beings catch a sight of planets belonging 
to another system, and even reason on the pheno- 



THE VISION. 


55 


mena presented by other suns. Those comets, 
of which yonr astronomical history is so imperfect, 
are to them perfectly familiar, and in their 
ephemerides their places are shown with as much 
accurateness as those of Jupiter or Yenus in your 
almanacks. The parallax of the fixed stars nearest 
them is as well understood as that of their own 
sun; and they possess a magnificent history of the 
changes taking place in the heavens,—changes wliich 
are governed by laws that it would be vain for me 
to attempt to give you an idea of. They are 
acquainted with the revolutions and uses of comets; 
they understand the system of those meteoric 
formations of stones which have so much astonished 
you on earth; and they have histories in which 
the gradual changes of nebulae in their progress 
towards systems have been registered, so that they 
can predict their future changes. And their 
astronomical records are not like yours which go 
back only twenty centuries to the time of Hip¬ 
parchus ; they embrace a period a hundred times 
as long, and their civil history for the same time 



56 


DIALOGUE I. 


is as correct as their astronomical one. As I 
cannot describe to you the organs of these wonderful 
beings, so neither can I show to you their modes 
of life; but as their highest pleasures depend 
upon intellectual pursuits, so you may conclude 
that those modes of life bear the strictest analogy 
to that which on the earth you would call exalted 
virtue. I will tell you however that they have 
no wars, and that the objects of their ambition 
are entirely those of intellectual greatness, and 
that the only passions they feel in which 
comparisons with each other can be instituted 
are those dependent upon a love of glory of the 
purest kind. If I were to show you the different 
parts of the surface of this planet, you would see 
marvellous results of the powers possessed by 
these highly intellectual beings, and of the wonderful 
manner in which they have applied and modified 
matter. Those columnar masses, which seem to 
you as if arising out of a mass of ice below, are 
results of art, and processes are going on in them 
connected with the formation and perfection of 



THE VISION . 


57 


their food. The brilliant coloured fluids are the 
results of such operations as on the earth would be 
performed in your laboratories, or more properly 
in your refined culinary apparatus, for they are 
connected with their system of nourishment. 
Those opaque azure clouds, to which you saw a 
few minutes ago one of those beings directing his 
course, are works of art and places in which they 
move through different regions of their atmosphere 
and command the temperature and the quantity 
of light most fitted for their philosophical researches, 
or most convenient for the purposes of life. On 
the verge of the visible horizon which we perceive 
around us, you may see in the east a very dark 
spot or shadow, in which the light of the sun 
seems entirely absorbed; this is the border of an 
immense mass of liquid analogous to your ocean, 
but unlike your sea it is inhabited by a race of 
intellectual beings inferior indeed to those belonging 
to the atmosphere of Saturn, but yet possessed of 
an extensive range of sensations and endowed with 
extraordinary power and intelligence. I could 



58 


DIALOGUE I. 


transport you to tlie different planets and show 
you in each, peculiar intellectual beings bearing 
analogies to each other, but yet all different in 
power and essence. In Jupiter you would see 
creatures similar to those in Saturn, but with 
different powers of locomotion. In Mars and Venus 
you would find races of created forms more 
analogous to those belonging to the earth. But 
in every part of the planetary system you would 
find one character peculiar to all intelligent natures, 
a sense of receiving impressions from light by 
various organs of vision; and towards this result 
you cannot but perceive that all the arrangements 
and motions of the planetary bodies, their satellites 
and atmospheres, are subservient. The spiritual 
natures therefore that pass from system to system, 
in progression towards power and knowledge, 
preserve at least this one invariable character, 
and their intellectual life may be said to depend 
more or less upon the influence of light. As 
far as my knowledge extends, even in other 
parts of the universe the more perfect organised 



THE VISION. 


59 


systems still possess this source of sensation and 
enjoyment; but with higher natures, finer and 
more ethereal kinds of matter are employed in 
oiganisation, substances that bear the same 
analogy to common matter that the refined or 
most subtle gases do to common solids and fluids. 
The universe is everywhere full of life, but the 
modes of this life are infinitely diversified, and 
yet every form of it must be enjoyed and known 
by every spiritual nature before the consummation 
of all tilings. You have seen the comet moving 
with its immense train of light through the sky; 
this likewise has a system supplied with living 
beings and their existence derives its enjoyment 
from the diversity of circumstances to which they 
are exposed; passing as it were through the infinity 
of space they are continually gratified by the 
sight of new systems and worlds, and you can 
imagine the unbounded nature of the circle of 
their knowledge. My power extends so far as to 
afford you a glimpse of the nature of a cometary 
world.” I was again in rapid motion, again 



60 


DIALOGUE I. 


passing with the utmost velocity through the 
bright blue sky, and I saw Jupiter and his satellites 
and Saturn and his ring behind me, and before 
me the sun, no longer appearing as through a blue 
mist but in bright and unsupportable splendour, 
towards which I seemed moving with the utmost 
velocity. In a limited sphere of vision, in a kind 
of red hazy light similar to that which first broke 
in upon me in the Colosseum, I saw moving 
round me globes which appeared composed of 
different kinds of flame and of different colours. 
In some of these globes I recognised figures 
which put me in mind of the human countenance, 
but the resemblance was so awful and unnatural 
that I endeavoured to withdraw my view from 
them. “You are now,” said the Genius, “in a 
cometary system; those globes of light surrounding 
you, are material forms, such as in one of your 
systems of religious faith have been attributed to 
seraphs; they live in that element which to you 
would be destruction; they communicate by 
powers which would convert your organised frame 



THE VISION. 


61 


into ashes; they are now in the height of their 
enjoyment, being about to enter into the blaze of 
the solar atmosphere. These beings so grand, so 
glorious, with functions to you incomprehensible, 
once belonged to the earth; their spiritual natures 
have risen through different stages of planetary 
life, leaving their dust behind them, carrying 
with them only their intellectual power. You ask 
me if they have any knowledge or reminiscence of 
their transitions ; tell me of your own recollections 
in the womb of your mother and I will answer 
you. It is the law of divine wisdom that no 
spirit carries with it into another state and being 
any habit or mental qualities except those which 
may be connected with its new wants or enjoy¬ 
ments; and knowledge relating to the earth 
would be no more useful to these glorified beings 
than their earthly system of organised dust, 
which would be instantly resolved into its ultimate 
atoms at such a temperature; even on the earth 
the butterfly does not transport with it into the 
air the organs or the appetites of the crawling 



62 


DIALOGUE I. 


worm from which it sprung. There is however 
one sentiment or passion which the monad or 
spiritual essence carries with it into all its stages 
of being, and which in these happy and elevated 
creatures is continually exalted, the love of 
knowledge or of intellectual power, which is in 
fact in its ultimate and most perfect development 
the love of infinite wisdom and unbounded power, 
or the love of God. Even in the imperfect life 
that belongs to the earth this passion exists in a 
considerable degree, increases even with age, 
outlives the perfection of the corporeal faculties, 
and at the moment of death is felt by the 
conscious being; and its future destinies depend 
upon the manner in which it has been exercised 
and exalted. When it has been misapplied and 
assumes the form of vague curiosity, restless 
ambition, vain-glory, pride or oppression, the 
being is degraded, it sinks in the scale of 
existence and still belongs to the earth or an 
inferior system, till its errors are corrected by 
painful discipline. When, on the contrary, the 



THE VISION. 


63 


love of intellectual power has been exercised on its 
noblest objects, in discovering and in contem¬ 
plating the properties of created forms and in 
applying them to useful and benevolent purposes, 
in developing and admiring the laws of the 
eternal Intelligence, the destinies of the sentient 
principle are of a nobler kind, it rises to a higher 
planetary world. Prom the height to which you 
have been lifted I could carry you downwards and 
show you intellectual natures even inferior to 
those belonging to the earth, in your own moon 
and in the lower planets, and I could demonstrate 
to you the effects of pain or moral evil in assisting 
in the great plan of the exaltation of spiritual 
natures; but I will not destroy the brightness of 
your present idea of the scheme of the universe 
by degrading pictures of the effects of bad passions 
and of the manner in which evil is corrected and 
destroyed. Your vision must end with the 
glorious view of the inhabitants of the cometary 
worlds: I cannot show you the beings of the 
system to which I myself belong, that of the sun; 



64 


DIALOGUE I. 


your organs would perish before our brightness, 
and I am only permitted to be present to you as 
a sound or intellectual voice. We are likewise in 
progression, but we see and know something of 
the plans of infinite Wisdom; we feel the personal 
presence of that supreme Deity which you only 
imagine; to you belongs faith, to us knowledge; 
and our greatest delight results from the convic¬ 
tion that we are lights kindled by his light 
and that we belong to his substance. To obey, to 
love, to wonder and adore form our relations to 
the infinite Intelligence. We feel his laws are 
those of eternal justice, and that they govern all 
things from the most glorious intellectual natures 
belonging to the sun and fixed stars to the 
meanest spark of life animating an atom crawling 
in the dust of your earth. We know all things 
begin from and end in his everlasting essence, the 
cause of causes, the power of powers.” 

The low and sweet voice ceased; it appeared as 
if I had fallen suddenly upon the earth, but there 
was a bright light before me and I heard my name 



THE VISION. 


65 


loudly called; the voice was not of my intellectual 
guide,—the genius before me was my servant 
bearing a flambeau in his hand. He told me he 
had been searching me in vain amongst the ruins, 
that the carriage had been waiting for me above 
an hour, and that he had left a large party of my 
friends assembled in the Palazzo P-. 




V esuvius 


DIALOGUE THE SECOND. 

DISCUSSIONS CONNECTED WITH THE VISION IN 
THE COLOSSEUM. 

The same friends Ambrosio, and Onuphrio, who 
were my companions at Rome in the winter, 
accompanied me in the spring to Naples. Many 
conversations occurred in the course of our journey 
which were often to me peculiarly instructive, and 
from the difference of their opinions generally 
animated and often entertaining. I shall detail 
one of these conversations, which took place in the 
evening on the summit of Vesuvius, and the 




DISCUSSIONS ON THE VISION. 


67 


remembrance of which, from its connexion with my 
vision at the Colosseum, has always a peculiar 
interest for me. We had reached with some 
labour the edge of the crater and were admiring 
the wonderful scene around us:—I shall give 
the conversation in the words of the persons 
of the drama. 

PHILALETHES. —It is difficult to say whether 
there is more of sublimity or beauty in the scene 
around us. Nature appears at once s mili ng and 
frowning, in activity and repose. How tremendous 
is the volcano, how magnificent this great laboratory 
of Nature in its unceasing fire, its subterraneous 
lightnings and thunder, its volumes of smoke, its 
showers of stones and its rivers of ignited lava! 
How contrasted the darkness of the scoriae, the 
ruins and the desolation round the crater with the 
scene below ! There we see the rich field covered 
with flax or maize or millet, and intersected by 
rows of trees which support the green and graceful 
festoons of the vine; the orange and lemon tree 
covered with golden fruit appear in the sheltered 




68 


DIALOGUE II. 


glens; the olive-trees cover the lower hills; islands, 
purple in the beams of the setting sun, are scattered 
over the sea in the west, and the sky is tinted with 
red softening into the brightest and purest azure; 
the distant mountains still retain a part of the 
snows of winter, but they are rapidly melting, and 
they absolutely seem to melt reflecting the beams 
of the setting sun, glowing as if on fire. And 
Man appears emulous of Nature, for the city below 
is full of activity; the nearest part of the bay is 
covered with boats, busy multitudes crowd the 
strand, and at the same time may be seen a number 
of the arts belonging to civilised society in operation, 
house-building, ship-building, rope-making, the 
manipulations of the smith and of the agriculturist: 
and not only the useful arts, but even the amuse¬ 
ments and luxuries of a great metropolis may be 
witnessed from the spot in which we stand; that 
motley crowd is collected round a policinello, and 
those smaller groups that surround the stalls are 
employed in enjoying the favourite food and drink 
of the lazzaroni. 



DISCUSSIONS ON THE VISION. 


69 


AMBROSIO. —We see not only tlie power and 
activity of man as existing at present, and of which 
the highest example may be represented by the 
steam-boat which is now departing for Palermo, 
but we may likewise view scenes which carry us 
into the very bosom of antiquity and as it were 
make us live with the generations of past ages. 
Those small square buildings scarcely visible in the 
distance are the tombs of distinguished men 
amongst the early Greek colonists of the country ; 
and those rows of houses without roofs, which 
appear as if newly erecting, constitute a Roman 
town restored from its ashes, that remained for 
centuries as if it had been swept from the face of 
the earth. When you study it in detail, you will 
hardly avoid the illusion that it is a rising city; 
you will almost be tempted to ask where are the 
workmen, so perfect are the walls of the houses, so 
bright and uninjured the painting upon them. 
Hardly anything is wanting to make this scene 
a magnificent epitome of all that is most worthy of 
admiration in Nature and Art; had there been in 



70 


DIALOGUE II. 


addition to the other objects a fine river and 
a waterfall, the epitome would I think have been 
absolutely perfect. 

PHIL. —You are most unreasonable in imagining 
additions to a scene which it is impossible to 
embrace in one view, and which presents so many 
objects to the senses, the memory, and the 
imagination; yet there is a river in the valley 
between Naples and Castel del Mare; you may 
see its silver thread and the white foam of its 
torrents in the distance; and if you were geologists 
you would find a number of sources of interest 
which have not been mentioned in the scenery 
surrounding us. Somma which is before us, for 
instance, affords a wonderful example of a mountain 
formed of marine deposits, and which has been 
raised by subterraneous fire, and those large and 
singular veins which you see at the base and rising 
through the substance of the strata are composed 
of volcanic porphyry, and offer a most striking and 
beautiful example of the generation and structure 
of rocks and mineral formations. 



DISCUSSIONS ON THE VISION. 


71 


ONUPHRIO. —As we passed through Portici on 
the road to the base of Vesuvius, it appeared 
to me that I saw a stone which had an ancient 
Roman inscription upon it, and which occupied 
the place of a portal in the modern palace of 
the Barberini. 

PHIL. —This is not an uncommon circumstance; 
most of the stones used in the palaces of Portici 
had been employed more than 2000 years before in 
structures raised by the ancient Romans or by the 
Greek colonists; and it is not a little remarkable 
that the buildings of Herculaneum, a town covered 
with ashes, tufa and lava from the first recorded 
eruption of Vesuvius, more than 1700 years ago, 
should have been constructed of volcanic materials 
produced by some antecedent igneous action of the 
mountain in times beyond the reach of history; and 
it is still more remarkable that men should have gone 
on for so many ages making erections in spots 
where their works have been so often destroyed, 
inattentive to the voice of time or the warnings 
of Nature. 



72 


DIALOGUE II. 


ON U.— Tins last fact recalls to my recollection 
an idea which Philalethes started in the remarkable 
dream, which he would have us believe occurred 
to him in the Colosseum; namely, that no im¬ 
portant facts which can be useful to society 
are ever lost, and that like these stones, though 
covered with ashes or hidden amongst ruins, they 
are sure to be brought forward again and made 
use of in some new form. 

A MB. —I do not see the justness of the analogy 
to which Onuphrio refers; but, there are many 
parts of that vision on which I should wish to 
hear the explanations of Philalethes. I consider 
it in fact as a sort of poetical epitome of his 
philosophical opinions, and I regard this vision or 
dream as a mere web of his imagination, in which 
he intended to catch us his summer-flies and 
travelling companions. 

PHIL. —There, Ambrosio, you do me wrong. I 
will acknowledge, if you please, that the vision in 
the Colosseum is a fiction; but the most important 
parts of it really occurred to me in sleep, par- 



DISCUSSIONS ON THE VISION. 


73 


ticularly that in which I seemed to leave the earth 
and launch into the infinity of space under the 
guidance of a tutelary genius. And the origin 
and progress of civil society form likewise parts 
of another dream which I had many years ago; 
and it was in the reverie which happened when 
you quitted me in the Colosseum that I wove all 
these thoughts together, and gave them the form 
in which I narrated them to you. 

A MB .— Of course we may consider them as an 
accurate representation of your waking thoughts. 

PHIL .— I do not say that they strictly are so; 
for I am not quite convinced that dreams are 
always representations of the state of the mind 
modified by organic diseases or by associations. 
There are certainly no absolutely new ideas pro¬ 
duced in sleep, yet I have had more than one 
instance, in the course of my life, of most extra¬ 
ordinary combinations occurring in this state, 
which have had considerable influence on my 
feelings, my imagination, and my health. 

ONU .— Why, Philalethes, you are becoming a 



74 


DIALOGUE II. 


visionary, a dreamer of dreams; we shall perhaps 
set you down by the side of Jacob Behmen or of 
Emanuel Swedenbourg, and in an earlier age you 
might have been a prophet and have ranked per¬ 
haps with Mahomet. But pray give us one of 
these instances in which such a marvellous influ¬ 
ence was produced on your imagination and your 
health by a dream, that we may form some 
judgment of the nature of your second-sight or 
inspirations, and whether they have any founda¬ 
tion, or whether they are not, as I believe, really 
unfounded, inventions of the fancy, dreams respect¬ 
ing dreams. 

PHIL. —I anticipate unbelief, and I expose my¬ 
self to your ridicule in the statement I am about 
to make, yet I shall mention nothing but a simple 
fact. Almost a quarter of a century ago, as you 
know, I contracted that terrible form of typhus 
fever known by the name of jail fever, I may say, 
not from any imprudence of my own, but whilst 
engaged in putting in execution a plan for ven¬ 
tilating one of the great prisons of the metropolis. 



DISCUSSIONS ON THE VISION. 


75 


My illness was severe and dangerous; as long as 
the fever continued my dreams or deliriums were 
most painful and oppressive; but when the weak¬ 
ness consequent to exhaustion came on, and when 
the probability of death seemed to my physicians 
greater than that of life, there was an entire 
change in all my ideal combinations. I remained 
in an apparently senseless or lethargic state, but 
in fact my mind was peculiarly active; there was 
always before me the form of a beautiful woman 
with whom I was engaged in the most interesting 
and intellectual conversation. 

A MB. —The figure of a lady with whom you 
were in love. 

PHIL. —No such thing; I was passionately in 
love at the time, but the object of my admiration 
was a lady with black hair, dark eyes and pale 
complexion; this spirit of my vision on the con¬ 
trary had brown hair, blue eyes and a bright rosy 
complexion, and was, as far as I can recollect, 
unlike any of the amatory forms which in early 
youth had so often haunted my imagination. Her 



76 


DIALOGUE II. 


figure for many days was so distinct in my mind 
as to form almost a visual image: as I gained 
strength the visits of my good angel, for so 
I called it, became less frequent, and when 
I was restored to health they were altogether 
discontinued. 

ONU .— I see nothing very strange in this, a 
mere reaction of the mind after severe pain, and, 
to a young man of twenty-five, there are few more 
pleasurable images than that of a beautiful maiden 
with blue eyes, blooming cheeks, and long nut- 
brown hair. 

PHIL. —But all my feelings and all my con¬ 
versations with this visionary maiden were of an 
intellectual and refined nature. 

ONU .— Yes, I suppose, as long as you were ill. 

PHIL. —I will not allow you to treat me with 
ridicule on this point till you have heard the 
second part of my tale. Ten years after I had 
recovered from the fever, and when I had almost 
lost the recollection of the vision, it was recalled 
to my memory by a very blooming and graceful 



DISCUSSIONS ON THE VISION. 


77 


maiden fourteen or fifteen years old, whom I 
accidentally met during my travels in Illyria; but 
I cannot say that the impression made by her 
upon my mind was very strong. Now comes 
the extraordinary part of the narrative. Ten 
years after, twenty years after my first illness, at a 
time when I was exceedingly weak from a severe 
and dangerous malady, which for many weeks 
threatened my life, and when my mind was almost 
in a desponding state, being in a course of travels 
ordered by my medical advisers, I again met the 
person who was the representative of my visionary 
female; and to her kindness and care I believe 
I owe what remains to me of existence. My 
despondency gradually disappeared, and though my 
health still continued weak, life began to possess 
charms for me which I had thought were for ever 
gone; and I could not help identifying the living 
angel with the vision which appeared as my 
guardian genius during the illness of my youth. 

ONU. —I really see nothing at all in this fact, 
whether the first or the second part of the narrative 



78 


DIALOGUE II. 


be considered, beyond the influence of an imagina¬ 
tion excited by disease. "From youth, even to age, 
women are our guardian angels, our comforters; 
and I dare say any other handsome young female, 
who had been your nurse in your last illness, 
would have coincided with your remembrance of 
the vision, even though her eyes had been hazel 
and her hair flaxen. Nothing can be more loose 
than the images represented in dreams following a 
fever, and with the nervous susceptibility produced 
by your last illness, almost any agreeable form 
would have become the representative of your 
imaginary guardian genius. Thus it is, that by 
the power of the fancy, material forms are clothed 
in supernatural attributes, and in the same manner 
imaginary divinities have all the forms of mortality 
bestowed upon them. The gods of the pagan 
mythology were in all their characters and attri¬ 
butes exalted human beings; the demon of the 
coward, and the angelic form that appears in the 
dreams of some maid smitten by devotion, and 
who, having lost her earthly lover, fixes her 



DISCUSSIONS ON THE VISION. 


thoughts on heaven, are clothed in the character 
and vestments of humanity changed by the dreami¬ 
ness of passion. 

A MB .— With such a tendency, Philalethes, as 
you have shown to believe in something like a 
supernatural or divine influence on the human 
mind, I am astonished there should be so much 
scepticism belonging to your vision in the Colos¬ 
seum. And your view of the early state of man, 
after his first creation, is not only incompatible 
with revelation, but likewise with reason and every¬ 
thing that we know respecting the history or 
traditions of the early nations of antiquity. 

PHIL .— Be more distinct and detailed in your 
statements, Ambrosio, that I may be able to reply 
to them; and whilst we are waiting for the sunrise 
we may discuss the subject, and for this, let us 
seat ourselves on these stones where we shall be 
warmed by the vicinity of the current of lava. 

A MB. —You consider man, in his early or first 
created state, a savage like those who now inhabit 
New Holland or New Zealand, acquiring by the 



80 


DIALOGUE II. 


little use that they make of a feeble reason the 
power of supporting and extending life. Now, I 
contend, that if man had been so created, he must 
inevitably have been destroyed by the elements 
or devoured by savage beasts, so infinitely his 
superiors in physical force; he must therefore have 
been formed with various instinctive faculties and 
propensities, with a perfection of form and use of 
organs fitting him to become the master of the 
earth; and, it appears to me, that the account 
given in Genesis of the first parents of mankind 
having been placed in a garden fitted with every¬ 
thing necessary to their existence and enjoyment, 
and ordered to increase and multiply there, is 
strictly in harmony with reason and accordant 
with all just metaphysical views of the human 
mind. Man, as he now exists, can only be raised 
with great care and difficulty from the infant to 
the mature state; all his motions are at first 
automatic and become voluntary by association; 
he has to learn everything by slow and difficult 
processes; many months elapse before he is able 



DISCUSSIONS ON THE VISION. 


81 


to stand, and many years before he is able to 
provide for the common wants of life. Without 
the mother or the nurse in his infant state, he 
would die in a few hours; and -without the 
laborious discipline of instruction and example, he 
would remain idiotic and inferior to most other 
animals. His reason is only acquired gradually, 
and when in its highest perfection is often uncer¬ 
tain in its results; he must therefore have been 
created with instincts that for a long while sup¬ 
plied the want of reason, and which enabled him, 
from the first moment of his existence, to provide 
for his wants, to gratify his desires, and enjoy the 
power and the activity of life. 

PHIL .— I acknowledge that your objection has 
some weight, but not so much as you would 
attribute to it. I will suppose that the first 
created man or men had certain powers or in¬ 
stincts, such as now belong to the rudest savages 
of the southern hemisphere; I will suppose them 
created with the use of their organs for defence 
and offence, and with passions and propensities 



82 


DIALOGUE II. 


enabling them to supply their own wants. And I 
oppose the fact of races who are now actually in 
this state to your vague, historical, or traditionary 
records; and their gradual progress or improve¬ 
ment from this early state of society to that of 
the highest state of civilisation or refinement may, 
I think, be easily deduced from the exertions of 
reason, assisted by the influence of the moral 
powers and of physical circumstances. Accident, 
I conceive, must have had some influence in laying 
the foundations of certain arts; and a climate in 
which labour was not too oppressive, and in which 
the exertion of industry was required to provide 
for the wants of life, must have fixed the character 
of the activity of the early improving people. 
Where nature is too kind a mother, man is gene¬ 
rally a spoiled child; where she is severe and a 
stepmother, his powers are usually withered and 
destroyed. The people of the south and the 
north, and those between the tropics, offer, even 
at this day, proof of the truth of this principle; 
and it is even possible now to find on the surface 



DISCUSSIONS ON THE VISION 


83 


of the earth, all the different gradations of the 
states of society, from that in which man is scarcely 
removed above the brute, to that in which he 
appears approaching in his nature to a divine 
intelligence. Besides, reason being the noblest 
gift of God to man, I can hardly suppose that an 
infinitely powerful and all-wise Creator would 
bestow upon the early inhabitants of the globe a 
greater proportion of instinct than was at first 
necessary to preserve their existence, and that he 
would not leave the great progress of their im¬ 
provement to the development and exaltation of 
their reasoning powers. 

A MB. —You appear to me in your argument to 
have forgotten the influence that any civilised race 
must possess over savages; and many of the 
nations which you consider as in their original 
state, may have descended from nations formerly 
civilised; and it is quite as easy to trace the 
retrograde steps of a people as their advances; 
the savage hordes who now inhabit the northern 
coast of Africa are probably descended from the 



84 


DIALOGUE II. 


opulent, commercial, and ingenious Carthaginians 
who once contended with Rome for the empire of 
the world; and even nearer home, we might find 
in southern Italy and her islands, proofs of a 
degradation not much inferior. What I contend 
for is, the civilisation of the first patriarchal races 
who peopled the East, and who passed into Europe 
from Armenia, in which paradise is supposed to 
have been placed. The early civilisation of this 
race could only have been in consequence of their 
powers and instincts having been of a higher 
character than those of savages. They appear to 
have been small families,—a state not at all fitted 
for the discovery of arts by the exercise of the 
mind, and they professed the most sublime form 
of religion,—the worship of one Supreme Intelli¬ 
gence, a truth which after a thousand years of 
civilisation was with difficulty attained by the 
most powerful efforts of reasoning by the Greek 
sages. It appears to me, that in the history of the 
Jews, nothing can be more in conformity to our 
ideas of just analogy, than this series of events. 




DISCUSSIONS ON THE VISION. 


85 


Our first parents were created with every tiling 
necessary for their wants and their happiness; 
they had only one duty to perform, by their 
obedience, to prove their love and devotion to their 
Creator. In this they failed, and death or the 
fear of death became a curse upon their race; but 
the father of mankind repented, and his instinctive 
or intellectual powers given by revelation were 
transmitted to his offspring, more or less modified 
by their reason, which they had gained as the fruit 
of their disobedience. One branch of this offspring, 
however, in whom faith shone forth above reason, 
retained their peculiar powers and institutions 
and preserved the worship of Jehovah pure, whilst 
many of the races sprung from their brethren 
became idolatrous, and the clear light of heaven 
was lost through the mist of the senses; and that 
Being, worsliipped by the Israelites only as a 
mysterious word, was forgotten by many of the 
nations who lived in the neighbouring countries; 
and, men, beasts, the parts of the visible universe, and 
even stocks and stones were set up as objects of 



86 


DIALOGUE II. 


adoration. The difficulty which the divine legis¬ 
lators of the Jewish people had to preserve the 
purity of their religion amongst the idolatrous 
nations by whom they were surrounded, proves 
the natural evil tendency of the human mind after 
the fall of man. And, whoever will consider the 
nature of the Mosaical or ceremonial law, and the 
manner in which it was suspended before the end 
of the Roman empire, the expiatory sacrifice of the 
Messiah, the fear of death destroyed by the blessed 
hopes of immortality established by the resurrection 
of Jesus Christ, the destruction of Jerusalem by 
Titus, and the triumphs of Christianity over 
Paganism in the time of Constantine, can, I think, 
hardly fail to acknowledge the reasonableness of 
the truth of revealed religion as founded upon 
the early history of man; and whoever acknow¬ 
ledges this reasonableness and this truth, must, 
I think, be dissatisfied with the view which 
Philalethes or his Genius has given of the progress 
of society, and will find in it one instance, 
amongst many others that might be discovered, of 



DISCUSSIONS ON THE VISION. 


87 


the vague and erring results of his so much 
boasted human reason. 

ONU. —I fear I shall shock Ambrosio; but I 
cannot help vindicating a little the philosophical 
results of human reason, which, it must be allowed, 
are entirely hostile to his ideas. I agree with 
Philalethes, that it is the noblest gift of God to 
man; and I cannot think that Ambroses view of 
the paradisaical condition, and the fall of man, and 
the progress of society, is at all in conformity with 
the ideas we ought to form of the institutions of 
an infinitely wise and powerful being. Besides, 
Ambrosio speaks of the reasonableness of his own 
opinions ; of course, his notions of reason must be 
different from mine, or we have adopted different 
forms of logic. I do not find in the biblical 
history any idea of the Supreme Intelligence 
conformable to those of the Greek philosophers. 
On the contrary, I find Jehovah everywhere 
described as a powerful material being, endowed 
with organs, feelings, and passions similar to those 
of a great and exalted human agent. He is 



88 


DIALOGUE II. 


described as making man in bis own image, as 
walking in the garden in the cool of the evening, 
as being pleased with sacrificial offerings, as angry 
with Adam and Eve, as personally cursing Cain 
for his crime of fratricide, and even as providing 
our first parents with garments to hide their 
nakedness. Then, he appears a material form in 
the midst of flames, thunder, and lightning, and 
was regarded by the Levites as having a fixed 
residence in the ark. He is contrasted throughout 
the whole of the Old Testament, with the gods of 
the heathens only as being more powerful; and, 
in the strange scene which took place in Pharaoh's 
court, he seemed to have measured his abilities 
with those of certain seers, or magicians, and to 
have proved his superiority only by producing 
greater and more tremendous plagues. In all the 
early history of the Jewish nation, there is no 
conception approaching to the sublimity of that 
of Anaxagoras, who called God the Intelligence or 
vovs; he appears always, on the contrary, like the 
genii of Arabian romance, living in clouds. 



DISCUSSIONS ON THE VISION. 


89 


descending on mountains, urging his chosen people 
to commit the most atrocious crimes, to destroy 
all the races not professing the same worship, and 
to exterminate even the child and the unborn 
infant. Then, I find in the Old Testament no 
promise of a spiritual Messiah, but only of a 
temporal king, who, as the Jews believe, is yet to 
come. The serpent in Genesis has no connexion 
with the spirit of evil; but is described only as the 
most subtile beast of the field, and having injured 
man, there was to be a perpetual enmity between 
their races; the serpent when able was to bite the 
heel of the man, and the man, when an opportunity 
occurred, was to bruise the head of the serpent. 
I will allow, if you please, that an instinct of 
religion or superstition belongs to the human 
mind, and that the different forms which this 
instinct assumes depend upon various circum¬ 
stances, and accidents of history and climate; but 
I am not sure that the religion of the Jews was 
superior to that of the Sabaeans who worshipped 
the stars, or of the ancient Persians who adored the 



90 


DIALOGUE II. 


sun as the visible symbol of divine power, or of the 
Eastern nations who, in the various forms of the 
visible universe, worshipped the powers and energies 
of the Divinity. I feel like the ancient Romans 
with respect to toleration; I would give a place 
to all the gods in my Pantheon, but I would not 
allow the followers of Bramah or of Christ to 
quarrel about the modes of incarnation, or the 
superiority of the attributes of their triune God. 

AMB.— You have mistaken me, Onuphrio, if you 
think I am shocked by your opinions. I have 
seen too much of the wanderings of human reason, 
ever to be surprised by them, and the views you 
have adopted are not uncommon amongst young 
men of very superior talents, who have only 
slightly examined the evidences of revealed reli¬ 
gion. But I am glad to find that you have not 
adopted the code of infidelity of many of the 
French revolutionists and of an English school of 
sceptics, who find in the ancient astronomy all the 
germs of the worship of the Hebrews, who identify 
the labours of Hercules with those of the Jewish 



DISCUSSIONS ON THE VISION. 


91 


heroes, and who find the life, death, and resurrection 
of the Messiah in the history of the solar day. 
You at least allow the existence of a peculiar 
religious instinct, or, as you are pleased to call it, 
superstition, belonging to the human mind, and 
I have hopes that upon this foundation you will 
ultimately build up a system of faith not unworthy 
a philosopher and a Christian. Man, with whatever 
religious instincts he was created, was intended to 
communicate with the visible universe by sensa¬ 
tions and act upon it by his organs, and in the 
earliest state of society he was more particularly 
influenced by his gross senses. Allowing the 
existence of a Supreme Intelligence and his 
beneficent intentions towards man, the ideas of his 
presence which he might think fit to impress upon 
the mind, either for the purpose of veneration or 
of love, of hope or fear, must have been in harmony 
with the general train of his sensations: I am not 
sure that I make myself intelligible. The same 
infinite power which in an instant could create an 
universe, could of course so modify the ideas of an 



92 


DIALOGUE II. 


intellectual being as to give them that form 
and character most fitted for his existence; and, I 
suppose in the early state of created man, he 
imagined that he enjoyed the actual presence of 
the Divinity and heard his voice. I take this to be 
the first and simplest result of religious instinct. 
In early times amongst the patriarchs I suppose 
the ideas were so vivid as to be confounded with 
impressions; but as religious instinct probably 
became feebler in their posterity, the vividness of 
the impressions diminished, and they then became 
visions or dreams, which with the prophets seem 
to have constituted inspiration. I do not suppose 
that the Supreme Being ever made himself known 
to man by a real change in the order of nature, 
but that the sensations of men were so modified by 
their instincts as to induce the belief in his 
presence. That there was a divine Intelligence 
continually acting upon the race of Seth as his 
chosen people, is I think clearly proved by the 
events of their history; and also that the early 
opinions of a small tribe in Judaea were designed 



DISCUSSIONS ON THE VISION. 


93 


for the foundation of the religion of the most 
active and civilised and powerful nations of the 
world, and that after a lapse of three thousand 
years. The manner in which Christianity spread 
over the world with a few obscure mechanics or 
fishermen for its promulgators,—the mode in 
which it triumphed over paganism even when 
professed and supported by the power and philoso¬ 
phy of a Julian,—the martyrs who subscribed to 
the truth of Christianity by shedding their blood 
for the faith,—the exalted nature of those intel¬ 
lectual men by whom it has been professed, who 
had examined all the depths of nature, and exercised 
the profoundest faculties of thought, such as 
Newton, Locke, and Hartley,—all appear to me 
strong arguments in favour of revealed religion. 
I prefer rather founding my creed upon the fitness 
of its doctrines, than upon historical evidences or 
the nature of its miracles. The divine Intelligence 
chooses that men should be convinced according 
to the ordinary train of their sensations, and on 
all occasions it appears to me more natural, that 



94 


DIALOGUE II. 


a change should take place in the human mind, 
than in the order of nature. The popular opinion 
of the people of Judaea was, that certain diseases 
were occasioned by devils taking possession of a 
human being; the disease was cured by our 
Saviour, and this in the Gospel is expressed by 
his casting out devils. But without entering into 
explanations respecting the historical miracles 
belonging to Christianity, it is sufficient to say, 
that its truth is attested by a constantly existing 
miracle,—the present state of the Jews, which was 
predicted by Jesus. Their temple and city were 
destroyed and all attempts made to rebuild it have 
been vain, and they remain the despised and 
outcasts of the world. 

ONU .— But you have not answered my objections 
with respect to the cruelties exercised by the Jews 
under the command of Jehovah, which appear to 
me in opposition to all our views of divine justice. 

A MB.— I think even Philalethes will allow that 
physical and moral diseases are hereditary, and that 
to destroy a pernicious unbelief or demoniacal 



95 


DISCUSSIONS ON THE VISION 

worship, it was necessary to destroy the whole race 
root and branch. As an example, I will imagine 
a certain contagious disease which is transmitted 
by parents to children, and which like the plague 
is communicated to sound persons by contact; to 
destroy a family of men who would spread this 
disease over the whole earth, would unquestionably 
be a mercy. Besides I believe in the immortality 
of the sentient principle in man; destruction of 
life is only a change of existence, and supposing 
the new existence a superior one, it is a gain. To 
the Supreme Intelligence, the death of a million of 
human beings, is the mere circumstance of so 
many spiritual essences changing their habitations, 
and is analogous to the myriad millions of larvae 
that leave their coats and shells behind them, and 
rise into the atmosphere as flies, in a summer day. 
When man measures the works of the divine Mind 
by his own feeble combinations, he must wander 
in gross error; the infinite can never be under¬ 
stood by the finite. 

ONU.— As far as I can comprehend your reasoning. 



96 


DIALOGUE II. 


the priests of Juggernaut might make the same 
defence for their idol, and find in such views 
a fair apology for the destruction of thousands of 
voluntary victims crushed to pieces by the feet of 
the sacred elephant. 

A MB.—M ndoubtedly they might, and I should 
allow the justness of their defence if I saw in their 
religion any germs of a divine institution fitted to 
become, like the religion of Jehovah, the faith of the 
whole civilised world, embracing the most perfect 
form of theism and the most refined and exalted 
morality. I consider the early acts of the Jewish 
nation as the lowest and rudest steps of a temple 
raised by the Supreme Being to contain the altar of 
sacrifice to his glory. In the early periods of society, 
rude and uncultivated men could only be acted upon 
by gross and temporal rewards and punishments; 
severe rites and heavy discipline were required 
to keep the mind in order, and the punishment of 
the idolatrous nations served as an example for the 
Jews. When Christianity took the place of Judaism, 
the ideas of the Supreme Being became more pure 



DISCUSSIONS ON THE VISION. 


97 


and abstracted, and the visible attributes of Jehovah 
and his angels appear to have been less frequently 
presented to the mind; yet even for many ages, it 
seemed as if the grossness of our material senses 
required some assistance from the eye in fixing or 
perpetuating the character of religious instinct, 
and the church to which I belong, and I may say 
the whole Christian church in early times, allowed 
visible images, pictures, statues and relics as the 
means of awakening the stronger devotional 
feelings. We have been accused of worshipping 
merely inanimate objects; but this is a very false 
notion of the nature of our faith; we regard them 
merely as vivid characters representing spiritual 
existences, and we no more worship them than the 
Protestant does his bible when he kisses it under 
a solemn religious adjuration. The past, the 
present, and the future, being the same to the 
infinite and divine Intelligence, and man being 
created in love for the purposes of happiness, the 
moral and religious discipline to which he was 
submitted, was in strict conformity to his progressive 


H 



98 


DIALOGUE II. 


faculties, and to the primary laws of his nature. 
It is but a rude analogy, yet it is the only one I 
can find, that of comparing the supreme Being to 
a wise and good father who to secure the well¬ 
being of his offspring is obliged to adopt a system 
of rewards and punishments in which the senses 
at first and afterwards the imagination and reason 
are concerned. He terrifies them by the example 
of others, awakens their love of glory by pointing 
out the distinction and the happiness gained by 
superior men by adopting a particular line of 
conduct; he uses at first the rod and gradually 
substitutes for it the fear of immediate shame; 
and having awakened the fear of shame and the 
love of praise or honour with respect to temporary 
and immediate actions, he extends them to the 
conduct of the whole of life, and makes what was 
a momentary feeling a permanent and immutable 
principle. And obedience in the child to the will 
of such a parent, may be compared to faith in and 
obedience to the will of the Supreme Being; and 
a wayward and disobedient child who 




DISCUSSIONS ON THE VISION. 


99 


and doubts the utility of the discipline of such a 
father, is much in the same state in which the 
adult man is, who doubts if there be good in the 
decrees of Providence and who questions the 
harmony of the plan of the moral universe. 

ONU.— Allowing the perfection of your moral 
scheme of religion and its fitness for the nature of 
man, I find it impossible to believe the primarv 
doctrines on which this scheme is founded. You 
make the divine Mind, the creator of infinite 
worlds, enter into the form of a man born of a 
virgin; you make the eternal and immortal God, the 
victim of shameful punishment and suffering death 
on the cross, recovering his life after three days 
and carrying his maimed and lacerated body into 
the heaven of heavens. 

A MB.— You, like all other sceptics, make your 
own interpretations of the Scriptures and set up a 
standard for divine power in human reason. The 
infinite and eternal Mind, as I said before, fits the 
doctrines of religion to the minds by which they 
are to be embraced. I see no improbability in the 

H 2 





100 


DIALOGUE II. 




idea that an integrant part of his essence may have 
animated a human form. There can be no doubt 
that this belief has existed in the human mind, and 
the belief constitutes the vital part of the religion. 
We know nothing of the generation of the human 
being in the ordinary course of nature; how absurd 
then to attempt to reason upon the acts of the 
divine Mind! nor is there more difficulty in imagi¬ 
ning the event of a divine conception than of a 
divine creation. To God the Infinite, little and 
great, as measured by human powers, are equal; a 
creature of this earth, however humble and insigni¬ 
ficant, may have the same weight with millions of 
superior beings inhabiting higher systems. But I 
consider all the miraculous parts of our religion 
as effected by changes in the sensations or ideas of 
the human mind, and not by physical changes in 
the order of nature. A man who has to repair a 
piece of machinery, as a clock, must take it to 
pieces and in fact remake it, but to infinite wisdom 
and power a change in the intellectual state of the 
human being may be the result of a momentary 



DISCUSSIONS ON THE VISION. 


101 


will, and the mere act of faith may produce the 
change. How great the powers of imagination are, 
even in ordinary life, is shown by many striking 
facts, and nothing seems impossible to this imagi¬ 
nation when acted upon by divine influence. To 
attempt to answer all the objections which may be 
derived from the want of conformity in the doctrines 
of Christianity to the usual order of events would 
be an interminable labour. My first principle is, 
that religion has nothing to do with the common 
order of events; it is a pure and divine instinct 
intended to give results to man which he cannot 
obtain by the common use of his reason and which 
at first view often appear contradictory to it, but 
which when examined by the most refined tests, and 
considered in the most extensive and profound 
relations, are in fact in conformity with the most 
exalted intellectual knowledge, so that indeed the 
results of pure reason ultimately become the same 
with those of faith,—the tree of knowledge is 
grafted upon the tree of life, and that fruit which 
brought the fear of death into the world budding 



102 


DIALOGUE II. 


on an immortal stock becomes the fruit of the 
promise of immortality. 

ONU .—You derive Christianity from Judaism. 
I cannot see their connexion, and it appears to me 
that the religion of Mahomet is more naturally a 
scion from the stock of Moses. Christ was a Jew 
and was circumcised; this rite was continued by 
Mahomet and is to this day adopted by his disciples 
though rejected by the Christians. And the doctrines 
of Mahomet appear to me to have a higher claim 
to divine origin than those of Jesus; his morality 
is as pure, his theism purer, and his system of 
rewards and punishments after death as much in 
conformity with our ideas of eternal justice. 

A MB.— I will willingly make the decision of the 
general question dependent upon the decision of 
this particular one. No attempts have been made 
by the Mahometans to find any predictions respect¬ 
ing their founder in the Old Testament, and they 
have never pretended even that he was the Messiah; 
therefore as far as prophecy is concerned there is 
no ground for admitting the truth of the religion 



DISCUSSIONS ON THE VISION. 


103 


of Mahomet. It has been the fashion with a 
particular sect of infidels to praise the morality of 
the Mahometans ; but I think unjustly. They are 
said to be honest in their dealings and charitable 
to those of their own persuasion; but they allow 
polygamy and a plurality of women, and are despisers 
and persecutors of the nations professing a different 
faith. And what a contrast does this morality 
present to that of the Gospel which inculcates 
charity to all mankind, and orders benevolent 
actions to be performed even to enemies; and the 
purity and simplicity of the infant is held up by 
Christ as the model of imitation for his followers. 
Then, in the rewards and punishments of the future 
state of the Mahometans, how gross are all the 
ideas, how unlike the promises of a divine and 
spiritual being; their paradise is a mere earthly 
garden of sensual pleasure and their Houris 
represent the ladies of their own harems rather than 
glorified angelic natures. How different is the 
Christian heaven, how sublime in its idea, indefinite, 
yet well suited to a being of intellectual and 



104 


DIALOGUE II. 


progressive faculties; “ Eye hath not seen, nor 
ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man 
to conceive the joys that He hath prepared for 
those who love Him. 33 

ONU— I confess your answer to my last argument 
is a triumphant one; but I cannot allow a question 
of such extent and of such a variety of bearings to 
be decided by so slight an advantage as that which 
you have gained by this answer. I will now offer 
another difficulty to you. The law of the Jews, 
you will allow, was established by God himself and 
delivered to Moses from the seat of his glory 
amongst storms, thunder and lightnings on Mount 
Sinai. Why should this law, if pure and divine, 
have been overturned by the same being who 
established it? And all the ceremonies of the 
Hebrews have been abolished by the first Christians. 

A MB. —I deny that the divine law of Moses was 
abolished by Christ, who himself says “ I came to 
confirm the law, not to destroy it . 33 And, the 
Ten Commandments form the vital parts of the 
foundation of the creed of the true Cliristian. It 



DISCUSSIONS ON THE VISION. 


105 


appears that the religion of Christ was the same 
pure theism with that of the patriarchs; and the 
rites and ceremonies established by Moses seem to 
have been only adjuncts to the spiritual religion 
intended to suit a particular climate and a particidar 
state of the Jewish nation, rather a dress or cloth¬ 
ing of the religion than forming a constituent part 
of it, a system of discipline of life and manners 
rather than an essential part of doctrine. The 
rites of circumcision and ablution were necessary to 
the health and perhaps even to the existence of a 
people living on the hottest part of the shores of 
the Mediterranean. And, in the sacrifices made of 
the first fruits and of the chosen of the flock, we 
may see a design not merely connected with the 
religious faith of the people but even with their 
political economy. To offer their choicest and best 
property as a proof of then* gratitude to the Supreme 
Being, was a kind of test of devotedness and 
obedience to the theocracy; and these sacrifices by 
obliging them to raise more produce and provide 
more cattle than were essential to their ordinary 



106 


DIALOGUE II. 


support, preserved them from the danger of famine, 
as in case of a dearth it was easy for the priests 
under the divine permission to apply these offer¬ 
ings to the necessities of the people. All the pure 
parts of the faith which had descended from 
Abraham to David were preserved by Jesus Christ; 
but the ceremonial religion was fitted only for 
a particular nation and a particular country; 
Christianity, on the contrary, was to be the religion 
of the world and of a civilised and improving 
world. And it appears to me to be an additional 
proof of its divine nature and origin, that it is 
exactly in conformity to the principles of the 
improvement and perfection of the human mind. 
When given to a particular race fixed in a peculiar 
climate, its objects were sensible, its discipline was 
severe, and its rites and ceremonies numerous and 
imposing, fitted to act upon weak, ignorant and 
consequently obstinate men. In its gradual 
development it threw off its local character and its 
particular forms, and adopted ceremonies more fitted 
for mankind in general; and in its ultimate views. 



DISCUSSIONS ON THE VISION 


107 


it preserves only pure, spiritual, and I may say 
philosophical doctrines, the unity of the divine 
nature and a future state, embracing a system of 
rewards and punishments suited to an accountable 
and immortal being. 

PHIL.— I have been attentively listening to your 
discussion. The views which Ambrosio has taken 
of Christianity certainly throw a light over it 
perfectly new to me; and, I must say in candour, 
that I am disposed to adopt his notion of the early 
state of society rather than that of my Genius. I 
have always been accustomed to consider religious 
feeling as instinctive; but Ambroses arguments have 
given me something approaching to a definite faith 
for an obscure and indefinite notion. I am willing 
to allow that man was created, not a savage, as he 
is represented in my vision, but perfect in his 
faculties and with a variety of instinctive powers 
and knowledge; that he transmitted these powers 
and knowledge to his offspring ; but that by an 
improper use of reason in disobedience to the divine 
will, the instinctive faculties of most of his descen- 



108 


DIALOGUE II. 


dants became deteriorated and at last lost, but that 
these faculties were preserved in the race of Abraham 
and David, and the full power again bestowed upon 
or recovered by Christ. I am ready to allow the 
importance of religion in cultivating and improving 
the world; and Ambroses view appears to me 
capable of being referred to a general law of our 
nature; and revelation may be regarded not as a 
partial interference but as a constant principle be¬ 
longing to the mind of man, and the belief in 
supernatural forms and agency, the results of 
prophecies and the miracles, as one only of the 
necessary consequences of it. Man, as a reasoning 
animal, must always have doubted of his immor¬ 
tality and plan of conduct. In all the results of 
faith, there is immediate submission to a divine 
will, which we are sure is good. We may compare 
the destiny of man in this respect to that of a 
migratory bird; if a slow flying bird, as a landrail 
in the Orkneys in autumn, had reason and could 
use it as to the probability of his finding his way 
over deserts, across seas, and of securing his food in 



DISCUSSIONS ON THE VISION. 


109 


passing to a warm climate 3000 miles off, he would 
undoubtedly starve in Europe; under the direction 
of liis instinct he securely arrives there in good 
condition. I have allowed the force of vour 
objections to that part of my vision relating to the 
origin of society, but I hope you will admit that 
the conclusion of it is not inconsistent with the 
ideas derived from revelation respecting the future 
state of the human being. 

A MB.— Revelation has not disclosed to us the 
nature of this state, but only fixed its certainty. 
We are sure from geological facts as well as from 
sacred history that man is a recent animal on the 
globe, and that this globe has undergone one con¬ 
siderable revolution, since the creation, by water; 
and we are taught that it is to undergo another, by 
fire, preparatory to a new and glorified state of 
existence of man; but this is all we are permitted to 
know, and as this state is to be entirely different 
from the present one of misery and probation, any 
knowledge respecting it would be useless and 
indeed almost impossible. 



110 


DIALOGUE II. 


PHIL.— My Genius has placed the more exalted 
spiritual natures in cometary worlds, and this last 
fiery revolution may be produced by the appulse of 
a comet. 

A MB _Human fancy may imagine a thousand 

ways in which it may be produced; but upon 
such notions it is absurd to dwell. I will not 
allow your Genius the slightest approach to 
inspiration, and I can admit no verisimility in a 
reverie wliieh is fixed on a foundation you now 
allow to be so weak.—But see, the twilight is 
beginning to appear in the orient sky, and there 
are some dark clouds on the horizon opposite to 
the crater of Vesuvius, the lower edges of which 
transmit a bright light showing the sun is already 
risen in the country beneath them. I would say 
that they may serve as an image of the hopes of 
immortality derived from revelation; for we are 
sure from the light reflected in those clouds that 
the lands below us are in the brightest sunshine, 
but we are entirely ignorant of the surface and the 
scenery; so, by revelation, the light of an im- 



DISCUSSIONS ON THE VISION. 


Ill 


perishable and glorious world is disclosed to us; 
but it is in eternity, and its objects cannot be seen 
by mortal eye or imaged by mortal imagination. 

PHIL.— I am not so well read in the Scriptures 
as I hope I shall be at no very distant time; but, 
I believe the pleasures of heaven are mentioned 
more distinctly than you allow in the sacred 
writings. I think, I remember that the saints are 
said to be crowned with palms and amaranths, and 
that they are described as perpetually hymning and 
praising God. 

AMB. —This is evidently only metaphorical; 
music is the sensual pleasure which approaches 
nearest to an intellectual one, and probably may 
represent the delight resulting from the perception 
of the harmony of tilings and of truth seen in God. 
The palm as an evergreen tree and the amaranth a 
perdurable flower are emblems of immortality. If 
I am allowed to give a metaphorical allusion to the 
future state of the blest, I should image it by the 
orange grove in that sheltered glen, on which the 
sun is now beginning to shine, and of which the 



112 


DIALOGUE II. 


trees are at the same time loaded with sweet 
golden fruit and balmy silver flowers. Such objects 
may well pourtray a state in which hope and 
fruition become one eternal feeling. 

ONU. —This glorious sunrise seems to have made 
you both poetical. Though with the darkest and 
most gloomy mind of the party, I cannot help 
feeling its influence; I cannot help believing with 
you, that the night of death will be succeeded by 
a bright morning; but as in the scene below us 
the objects are nearly the same as they were last 
evening, with more of brightness and brilliancy, 
with a fairer prospect in the east and more mist in 
the west, so I cannot help believing that our new 
state of existence must bear an analogy to the 
present one, and that the order of events will not 
be entirely different. 

A MB.— Your view is not an unnatural one; but 

I am rejoiced to find some symptoms of a change 

in your opinions. 

\ 

ONU. —I wish with all my heart they were stronger; 
I begin to feel my reason a weight and my scepticism 



DISCUSSIONS ON THE VISION. 


113 


a very heavy load. Your discussions have made 
me a philo-Christian, but I cannot understand nor 
embrace all the views you have developed, though 
I really wish to do so. 

AMB.— Your wish, if sincere, I doubt not will be 
gratified. Fix your powerful mind upon the 
harmony of the moral world, as you have been 
long accustomed to do upon the order of the 
physical universe, and you will see the scheme of 
the eternal Intelligence developing itself alike in 
both. Think of the goodness and mercy of Omni¬ 
potence, and aid your contemplation by devotional 
feelings and mental prayer and aspirations to the 
source of all knowledge, and wait with humility 
for the light which I doubt not will be so produced 
in your mind. 

ONU. —You again perplex me: I cannot believe 
that the adorations or offerings of so feeble a 
creature can influence the decrees of Omnipotence. 

AMB.— You mistake me : as to their influencing 
or affecting the supreme Mind, it is out of the 
question; but they affect your own mind, they 



114 


DIALOGUE II. 


perpetuate a habit of gratitude and of obedience 
which may gradually end in perfect faith; they 
discipline the affections and keep the heart in a 
state of preparation to receive and preserve all 
good and pious feelings. Whoever passes from 
utter darkness into bright sunshine, finds that he 
cannot at first distinguish objects better in one 
than in the other; but in a feeble light he acquires 
gradually the power of bearing a brighter one, and 
gains at last the habit not only of supporting it, 
but of receiving delight as well as instruction from 
it. In the pious contemplations that I recommend 
to you, there is the twilight or sober dawn of 
faith winch will ultimately enable you to support 
the brightness of its meridian sun. 

ONU .— I understand you; but your metaphor is 
more poetical than just; your discipline, however, 
I have no doubt, is better fitted to enable me to 
bear the light, than to contemplate it through the 
smoked or coloured glasses of scepticism. 

A MB. —Yes; for they not only diminish its 
brightness, but alter its nature. 




Paestum. 


DIALOGUE THE THIRD. 


THE UNKNOWN. 

The same persons accompanied me in many 
journeys by land and water to different parts of 
the Phlegraean fields, and we enjoyed in a most 
delightful season, the beginning of May, the 
beauties of the glorious country which encloses the 
Bay of Naples, so rich, so ornamented with the 
gifts of nature, so interesting from the monuments 
it contains and the recollections it awakens. One 

i 2 












116 


DIALOGUE III. 


excursion, the last we made in southern Italy, the 
most important both from the extraordinary 
personage with whom it made me acquainted and 
his influence upon my future life, merits a particular 
detail which I shall now deliver to paper. 

It was on the 16th of May, 18—, that we left 
Naples at three in the morning, for the purpose of 
visiting the remains of the temples of Psestum; and 
having provided relays of horses w r e found ourselves 
at about half-past one o’clock descending the hill 
of Eboli towards the plain which contains these 
stupendous monuments of antiquity. Were my 
existence to be prolonged through ten centuries, 
I think I could never forget the pleasure I received 
on that delicious spot. We alighted from our 
carriage to take some refreshment, and we reposed 
upon the herbage under the shade of a magnificent 
pine, contemplating the view around and below us. 
On the right were the green hills covered with 
trees, stretching towards Salerno. Beyond them 
were the marble cliffs which form the southern 
extremity of the Bay of Sorento. Immediately 



THE UNKNOWN. 


117 


below our feet was a rich and cultivated country, 
filled with vineyards and abounding in villas; in 
the gardens of which were seen the olive and the 
cypress tree connected as if to memorialise how 
near to each other are life and death—joy and 
sorrow. The distant mountains, stretching beyond 
the plain of Paestum, were in the full luxuriance of 
vernal vegetation. And in the extreme distance, 
as if in the midst of a desert, we saw the white 
temples glittering in the sunshine. The blue 
Tyrrhene sea filled up the outline of this scene, 
which, though so beautiful, was not calm; there 
was a heavy breeze which blew full from the 
south-west; it was literally a zephyr, and its fresh¬ 
ness and strength in the middle of the day were 
peculiarly balmy and delightful; it seemed a breath 
stolen by the spring from the summer. I never 
saw a deeper brighter azure than that of the waves 
which rolled towards the shore, ^nd which was 
rendered more striking by the pure whiteness of 
their foam. The agitation of nature seemed to be 
one of breathing and awakening life; the noise 



118 


DIALOGUE III. 


made by the waving of the branches of the pine 
above our heads and by the rattling of its cones was 
overpowered by the music of a multitude of birds 
which sung everywhere in the trees that surrounded 
us, and the cooing of the turtle-doves was heard 
even more distinctly than the murmuring of the 
waves or the whistling of the winds, so that in the 
strife of nature the voice of love was predominant. 
With our hearts touched by this extraordinary scene 
we descended to the ruins, and having taken at a 
farm-house a person who acted as guide or cicerone, 
we began to examine those wonderful remains 
which have outlived even the name of the people by 
whom they were raised, and which continue almost 
perfect whilst a Eoman and a Saracen city since 
raised have been destroyed. We had been walking 
for half an hour round the temples in the sunshine 
when our guide represented to us the danger that 
there was of suffering from the effects of malaria, 
for which, as is well known, this place is notorious, 
and advised us to retire into the interior of the 
temple of Neptune. We followed his advice and 




THE UNKNOWN. 


119 


my companions began to employ themselves in 
measuring the circumference of one of the Doric 
columns, when they suddenly called my attention to 
a stranger who was sitting on a camp-stool behind 
it. The appearance of any person in this place at 
this time was sufficiently remarkable, but the man 
who was before us from his dress and appearance 
would have been remarkable anywhere. He was 
employed in writing in a memorandum book when 
we first saw him, but he immediately rose and saluted 
us by bending the head slightly though gracefully ; 
and this enabled me to see distinctly his person and 
dress. He was rather above the middle stature, 
slender, but with well-turned limbs. His countenance 
was remarkably intelligent, his eye hazel but full and 
strong. His front was smooth and unwrinkled, and 
but for some grey hairs, which appeared silvering 
his brown and curly locks, he might have been 
supposed to have hardly reached the middle age. His 
nose was aquiline, the expression of the lower part 
of his countenance remarkably sweet, and when he 
spoke to our guide, which he did with uncommon 



120 


DIALOGUE III. 


fluency in the Neapolitan dialect, I thought I had 
never heard a more agreeable voice, sonorous yet 
gentle and silver-sounded. His dress was very 
peculiar, almost like that of an ecclesiastic, but 
coarse and light; and there was a large soiled white 
hat on the ground beside him, on which was 
fastened a pilgrim's cockle shell, and there was 
suspended round his neck a long antique blue 
enamelled phial, like those found in the Greek tombs, 
and it was attached to a rosary of coarse beads. 
He took up his hat and appeared to be retiring to 
another part of the building, when I apologised for 
the interruption we had given to his studies, begged 
him to resume them, and assured him that our stay 
in the building would be only momentary, for I 
saw that there was a cloud over the sun, the 
brightness of which was the cause of our retiring. 
I spoke in Italian; he replied in English, observing 
that he supposed the fear of contracting the malaria 
fever had induced us to seek the shelter of the shade, 
—“ but it is too early in the season to have much rea¬ 
sonable fear of this insidious enemy; yet/' he added. 



THE UNKNOWN. 


121 


“ this bottle which you may have observed here at my 
breast, I carry about with me, as a supposed pre¬ 
ventive of the effects of malaria, and as far as my 
experience, a very limited one however, has gone, it 
is effectual.” I ventured to ask him what the bottle 
might contain, as such a benefit ought to be made 
known to the world. He replied,—“ It is a mixture 
which slowly produces the substance called by 
chemists chlorine, which is well known to be gene¬ 
rally destructive to contagious matters; and a friend 
of mine who has lived for many years in Italy, and 
who has made a number of experiments with it, by 
exposing himself to the danger of fever in the worst 
seasons and in the worst places, believes that it is a 
secure preventive. I am not convinced of this; 
but it can do no harm; and in waiting for more 
evidence of its utility, I employ it without putting 
the least confidence in its power '; nor do I expose 
myself to the same danger as my friend has done, 
for the sake of an experiment.” I said,—“ I believe 
several scientific persons, Brocchi amongst others, 
have doubted the existence of any specific matter in 



122 


DIALOGUE III. 


the atmosphere, producing intermittent fevers, in 
marshy countries and hot climates; and have been 
more disposed to attribute the disease to physical 
causes, dependent upon the great differences of 
temperature between day and night, and to the 
refrigerating effects of the dense fogs, common in 
such situations, in the evening and morning; and, 
on this hypothesis, they have recommended warm 
woollen clothing and fires at night, as the best 
preventives against these destructive diseases, so 
fatal to the peasants who remain in the summer 
and autumn in the neighbourhood of the maremme of 
Rome, Tuscany or Naples. ” The stranger said,— 
“ I am acquainted with the opinions of the gentle¬ 
men, and they undoubtedly have weight; but, that 
a specific matter of contagion has not been detected 
by chemical means, in the atmosphere of marshes, 
does not prove its non-existence. We know so 
little of those agents that affect the human consti¬ 
tution, that it is of no use to reason on this subject. 
There can be no doubt that the line of malaria 
above the Pontine marshes is marked by a dense fog 



THE UNKNOWN. 


123 


morning and evening, and most of the old Roman 
towns were placed upon eminences out of the reach 
of this fog. I have myself experienced a peculiar 
effect upon the organs of smell in the neighbourhood 
of marshes in the evening after a very hot day; and 
the instances in which people have been seized with 
intermittents, by a single exposure, in a place 
infested by malaria in the season of fevers, gives, I 
think, a strong support to something like a 
poisonous material existing in the atmosphere in 
such spots; but I merely offer doubts. I hope the 
progress of physiology and of chemistry will at no 
very distant time solve this important problem. ” 
Ambrosio now came forward, and bowing to the 
stranger said, he took the liberty, as he saw from 
his familiarity with the cicerone that he was well 
acquainted with Psestum, of asking him whether the 
masses of travertine, of which the Cyclopian walls 
and the temples were formed, were really produced 
by aqueous deposition from the river Silaro, as he 
had often heard reported. The stranger replied,— 
“ that they were certainly produced by deposition 




124 


DIALOGUE III. 


from water; and such deposits are made by the 
Silaro. But I rather believe/' he said, “ that a lake 
in the immediate neighbourhood of the city furnished 
the quarry from which these stones were excavated; 
and, in half an hour, if you like, after you have 
finished your examinations of the temples with your 
guide, I will accompany you to the spot from which 
it is evident that large masses of the travertine, 
marmor tiburtinum, or calcareous tufa, have been 
raised." We thanked him for his attention, 
accepted his invitation, took the usual walk round 
the temple, and returned to our new acquaintance, 
who led the way through the gate of the city to the 
banks of a pool or lake a short distance off. We 
walked to the borders on a mass of calcareous tufa, 
and we saw that this substance had even encrusted 
the reeds on the shore. There was something 
peculiarly melancholy in the character of this water. 
All the herbs around it were grey, as if encrusted 
with marble. A few buffaloes were slaking their thirst 
in it, which ran wildly away on our approach, and 
appeared to retire into a rocky excavation or quarry 



THE UNKNOWN. 


125 


at the end of the lake: there were a number of 
birds, which, on examination, I found were sea 
swallows flitting on the surface and busily employed 
with the libellulse or dragon-fly, in destroying 
the myriads of gnats which rose from the bottom 
and were beginning to be very troublesome to 
us by their bites. “ There, ” said the stranger, 
“is what I believe to be the source of those 
large and durable stones which you see in the 
plain before you. This water rapidly deposits 
calcareous matter; and even if you throw 
a stick into it, a few hours is sufficient to give 
it a coating of this substance. Whichever way 
you turn your eyes you see masses of this recently 
produced marble, the consequence of the over¬ 
flowing of the lake during the winter floods; and 
in that large excavation, where you saw the buffaloes 
disappear, you may observe that immense masses 
have been removed, as if by the hand of art and in 
remote times. The marble that remains in the 
quarry is of the same texture and character as that 
which you see in the ruins of Psestum, and I think 




126 


DIALOGUE III. 


it is scarcely possible to doubt, that the builders of 
those extraordinary structures derived a part of 
their materials from tliis spot.” Ambrosio gave 
his assent to this opinion of the stranger; and I 
took the liberty of asking him as to the quantity of 
calcareous matter contained in solution in the lake, 
saying, that it appeared to me for so rapid and 
considerable an effect of deposition, there must be 
an unusual quantity of solid matter dissolved by 
the water, or some peculiar circumstance of solution. 
The stranger replied ,—“ This water is like many, I 
may say most, of the sources which rise at the foot 
of the Apennines; it holds carbonic acid in solution 
which has dissolved a portion of the calcareous 
matter of the rock through which it has passed;— 
this carbonic acid is dissipated in the atmosphere, 
and the marble, slowly thrown down, assumes a 
crystalline form and produces coherent stones. 
The lake before us is not particularly rich in the 
quantity of calcareous matter that it contains; for, 
as I have found by experience, a pint of it does 
not afford more than five or six grains; but the 



THE UNKNOWN. 


127 


quantity of fluid and the length of time are 
sufficient to account for the immense quantities of 
tufa and rock which in the course of ages have accu¬ 
mulated in this situation/’ Onuplirio’s curiosity 
was excited by this statement of the stranger, and 
he said,—“ May I take the liberty of asking, if you 
have any idea as to the cause of the large quantity 
of carbonic acid, which you have been so good as 
to inform us exists in most of the waters in this 
country?” The stranger replied,—“I certainly 
have formed an opinion on this subject, which I 
willingly state to you. It can, I think, be scarcely 
doubted that there is a source of volcanic fire at 
no great distance from the surface, in the whole of 
southern Italy; and, this fire acting upon the 
calcareous rocks of which the Apennines are com¬ 
posed, must constantly detach from them carbonic 
acid, which, rising to the sources of the springs 
deposited from the waters of the atmosphere, must 
give them their impregnation and enable them to 
dissolve calcareous matter. I need not dwell upon 
Etna, Vesuvius, or the Lipari islands to prove that 



128 


DIALOGUE III. 


volcanic fires are still in existence. There can 
be no doubt, that in earlier periods almost the 
whole of Italy was ravaged by them ; even Rome 
itself, the eternal city, rests upon the craters of 
extinct volcanoes; and, I imagine that the tradi¬ 
tional and fabulous record of the destruction made 
by the conflagration of Phaeton, in the chariot of 
the sun, and his fading into the Po, had reference 
to a great and tremendous igneous volcanic eruption, 
which extended over Italy and ceased only near 
the Po at the foot of the Alps. Pe this as it may, 
the sources of carbonic acid are numerous, not 
merely in the Neapolitan but likewise in the Roman 
and Tuscan states. The most magnificent water¬ 
fall in Europe, that of the Yelino near Terni, is 
partly fed by a stream containing calcareous matter 
dissolved by carbonic acid, and it deposits marble, 
which crystallises, even in the midst of its thundering 
descent and foam, in the bed in which it falls. 
The Anio or Teverone, which almost approaches in 
beauty to the Yelino in the number and variety of 
its falls and cascatelle, is likewise a calcareous water; 



THE UNKNOWN. 


129 


and, there is still a more remarkable one, which 
empties itself into this river below Tivoli, and 
which you have probably seen in your excursions 
in the campagna of Rome, called the lacus Albula 
or the lake of the Solfatara.” Ambrosio said,— 
“ We remember it well, we saw it this very spring; 
we were carried there, to examine some ancient 
Roman baths, and we were struck by the blue 
milkiness of the water, by the magnitude of the 
source, and by the disagreeable smell of sulphuretted 
hydrogen which every where surrounded the lake.” 
The stranger said,—“When you return to Latium 
I advise you to pay another visit to a spot, which is 
interesting from a number of causes, some of which 
I will take the liberty of mentioning to you. You 
have seen only one lake, that where the ancient 
Romans erected their baths; but there is another a 
few yards above it, surrounded by very high rushes 
and almost hidden by them from the sight. This 
lake sends down a considerable stream of tepid 
water to the larger lake, but this water is less 
strongly impregnated with carbonic acid; the 



130 


DIALOGUE III. 


largest lake is actually a saturated solution of this 
gas, which escapes from it, in such quantities in 
some parts of its surface, that it has the appearance 
of being actually in ebullition. I have found by 
experiment that the water taken from the most 
tranquil part of the lake, even after being agitated 
and exposed to the air, contained in solution more 
than its own volume of carbonic acid gas with a 
very small quantity of sulphuretted hydrogen, to 
the presence of which, I conclude, its ancient use 
in curing cutaneous disorders may be referred. 
Its temperature, I ascertained, was in the winter in 
the warmest parts above 80° of Fahrenheit, and it 
appears to be pretty constant; for I have found 
it differ a few degrees only, in the ascending source 
in January, March, May, and the beginning of 
June: it is therefore supplied with heat from a 
subterraneous source, being nearly twenty degrees 
above the mean temperature of the atmosphere. 
Kircher has detailed in his Mundus Subterraneus 
various wonders respecting this lake, most of which 
are unfounded, such as that it is unfathomable. 



THE UNKNOWN. 


131 


that it has at the bottom the heat of boiling water, 
and that floating islands rise from the gulf which 
emits it. It must certainly be very difficult, or 
even impossible to fathom a source, which rises with 
so much violence from a subterraneous excavation; 
and, at a time when chemistry had made small 
progress, it was easy to mistake the disengagement 
of carbonic acid for an actual ebullition. The 
floating islands are real, but neither the Jesuit, nor 
any of the writers who have since described this 
lake, had a correct idea of their origin, which is 
exceedingly curious. The high temperature of 
this water, and the quantity of carbonic acid that 
it contains, render it peculiarly fitted to afford a 
pabulum or nourishment to vegetable life: the 
banks of travertine are everywhere covered with 
reeds, lichens, confervse and various kinds of aquatic 
vegetables; and, at the same time that the process 
of vegetable life is going on, the crystallisations of 
the calcareous matter, which is everywhere deposited 
in consequence of the escape of carbonic acid, 
likewise proceed, giving a constant milkmess to 



132 


DIALOGUE III. 


what from its tint would otherwise be a blue fluid. 
So rapid is the vegetation, owing to the decom¬ 
position of the carbonic acid, that even in winter, 
masses of confervse and lichens, mixed with 
deposited travertine, are constantly detached by the 
currents of water from the bank, and float down 
the stream, which being a considerable river is 
never without many of these small islands on its 
surface : they are sometimes only a few inches in 
size and composed merely of dark-green confervse 
or purple or yellow lichens, but, they are sometimes, 
even of some feet in diameter, and contain seeds 
and various species of common water-plants, 
which are usually more or less incrusted with 
marble. There is, I believe, no place in the 
world, where there is a more striking example of 
the opposition or contrast of the laws of animate 
and inanimate nature, of the forces of inorganic 
chemical affinity and those of the powers of life. 
Vegetables, in such a temperature and everywhere 
surrounded by food, are produced with a wonderful 
rapidity; but, the crystallisations are formed with 



THE UNKNOWN. 


133 


equal quickness, and they are no sooner produced 
than they are destroyed together. Notwithstanding 
the sulphureous exhalations from the lake, the 
quantity of vegetable matter generated there and its 
heat make it the resort of an infinite variety of insect 
tribes; and, even in the coldest days in winter, 
numbers of flies may be observed on the vegetables 
surrounding its banks or on its floating islands, and 
a quantity of their larvae may be seen there, some¬ 
times incrusted and entirely destroyed by calcareous 
matter, which is likewise often the fate of the insects 
themselves, as well as of various species of shell-fish 
that are found amongst the vegetables, which grow 
and are destroyed in the travertine on its banks. 
Snipes, ducks and various water-birds often visit 
these lakes, probably attracted by the temperature 
and the quantity of food in which they abound; but 
they usually confine themselves to the banks, as 
the carbonic acid disengaged from the surface 
would be fatal to them, if they ventured to swim 
upon it when tranquil. In May 18— I fixed a 
stick on a mass of travertine covered by the water. 



134 


DIALOGUE III. 


and I examined it in the beginning of the April 
following, for the purpose of determining the 
nature of the depositions. The water was lower 
at this time, yet I had some difficulty, by means 
of a sharp-pointed hammer, in breaking the mass 
which adhered to the bottom of the stick; it was 
several inches in thickness. The upper part was a 
mixture of light tufa and the leaves of confervse; 
below this, was a darker and more solid travertine 
containing black and decomposed masses of con¬ 
fervse ; in the inferior part, the travertine was 
more solid and of a grey colour, but with cavities 
which I have no doubt were produced by the 
decomposition of vegetable matter. I have passed 
many hours, I may say, many days, in studying 
the phenomena of this wonderful lake; it has 
brought many trains of thought into my mind 
connected with the early changes of our globe, and 
I have sometimes reasoned from the forms of 
plants and animals preserved in marble in this 
warm source, to the grander depositions in the 
secondary rocks, where the zoophytes or coral 



THE UNKNOWN. 


135 


insects have worked upon a grand scale, and where 
palms and vegetables now unknown, are preserved 
with the remains of crocodiles, turtles, and gigantic 
extinct animals of the sauri genus, and which 
appear to have belonged to a period when the 
whole globe possessed a much higher temperature. 
I have likewise often been led from the remark¬ 
able phenomena surrounding me in that spot, to 
compare the works of man with those of nature. 
The baths, erected there nearly twenty centuries 
ago, present only heaps of ruins, and even the 
bricks of which they were built, though hardened 
by fire, are crumbled into dust, whilst the masses 
of travertine around it, though formed by a 
variable source from the most perishable materials, 
have hardened by time, and the most perfect 
remains of the greatest ruins in the eternal city, 
such as the triumphal arches and the Colosseum, 
owe their duration to this source. Then, from all we 
know, this lake, except in some change in its dimen¬ 
sions, continues nearly in the same state in which 
it was described 1700 years ago by Pliny, and I have 



136 


DIALOGUE III. 


no doubt contains the same kinds of floating 
islands, the same plants and the same insects. 
During the fifteen years that I have known it, it 
has appeared precisely identical in these respects; 
—and yet, it has the character of an accidental 
phenomenon depending upon subterraneous fire. 
How marvellous then are those laws by which 
even the humblest types of organic existence are 
preserved though born amidst the sources of their 
destruction, and by which a species of immortality 
is given to generations floating, as it were, like 
evanescent bubbles, on a stream raised from the 
deepest caverns of the earth, and instantly losing 
what may be called its spirit in the atmosphere . 99 
These last observations of the stranger recalled 
to my recollection some phenomena which I had 
observed many years ago, and of which I could 
then give no satisfactory explanation. I was 
shooting in the marshes which surrounded the 
ruins of Gabia and where there are still remains 
supposed to be of the Alexandrine aqueduct; I 
observed a small insulated hill, apparently entirely 



THE UNKNOWN. 


137 


composed of travertine, and from its summit there 
were formations of tufa which had evidently been 
produced by running water; but the whole mass 
was now perfectly dry and incrusted by vegetables. 
At first I suspected that this little mountain 
had been formed by a jet of calcareous water,—a 
kind of small fountain analogous to the Geiser, 
which had deposited travertine, and continued 
to rise through the basin flowing from a 
higher level; but the irregular form of the emi¬ 
nence did not correspond to this idea, and I 
remained perplexed with the fact and unable to 
satisfy myself as to its cause. The views of the 
stranger appeared to me now to make it probable 
that the calcareous water had issued from ancient 
leaks in the aqueduct, and formed a hillock that 
had encased the bricks of the erection, which, in 
other parts where not incrusted by travertine, had 
become entirely decayed, degraded and removed 
from the soil. I mentioned the circumstance and 
my suspicion of its nature. The stranger said,— 
“ You are perfectly correct in your idea. I know 



138 


DIALOGUE III. 


the spot well, and if you had not mentioned it, I 
should probably have quoted it as an instance in 
which the works of art are preserved, as it were, by 
the accidents of nature. I was so struck by this 
appearance last year, that I had the travertine 
partially removed by some workmen, and I found 
beneath it the canal of the aqueduct in a perfect 
state, and the bricks of the arches as uninjured as 
if freshly laid. ” The stranger had hardly con¬ 
cluded this sentence, when he was interrupted by 
Onuphrio; who said,—“ I have always supposed 
that in every geological system water is considered 
as the cause of the destruction or degradation of 
the surface; but, in all the instances that you have 
mentioned, it appears rather as a conservative 
power, not destroying but rather producing.” “ It 
is the general vice of philosophical systems,” 
replied the stranger, “ that they are usually founded 
upon a few facts, which they well explain, and are 
extended by the human fancy to all the phenomena 
of nature, to many of which they must be con¬ 
tradictory. The human intellectual powers are so 



THE UNKNOWN. 


139 


feeble that they can with difficulty embrace a single 
series of phenomena, and they consequently must 
fail when extended to the whole of nature. Water 
by its common operation, as poured down from the 
atmosphere in rain and torrents, tends to level and 
degrade the surface, and carries the material of the 
land into the bosom of the ocean, hire, on the 
contrary, in volcanic eruptions usually raises 
mountains, exalts the surface, and creates islands 
even in the midst of the sea. But these laws are 
not invariable, as the instances to which we have 
just referred prove; and parts of the surface of the 
globe are sometimes destroyed even by fire, of 
which examples may be seen in the Phlegrsean fields; 
and islands raised by one volcanic eruption have 
been immerged in the sea by another. There are, 
in fact, no accidents in nature; what we call 
accidents are the results of general laws in par¬ 
ticular operation, but we cannot deduce these laws 
from the particular operation, or the general order 
from the partial result.” Ambrosio said to the 
stranger,—“You appear, sir, to have paid so much 



140 


DIALOGUE III. 


attention to physical phenomena, that few things 
would give us more pleasure than to know your 
opinion respecting the early changes and physical 
history of the globe, for I perceive you do not 
belong to the modern geological schools.” The 
stranger said ,—“ I have certainly formed opinions, 
or rather speculations on these subjects, but I fear 
they are hardly worth communicating; they have 
sometimes amused me in hours of idleness, but I 
doubt if they will amuse others. ” I said,—" The 
observations which you have already been so kind 
as to communicate to us, on the formation of the 
travertine, lead us not only to expect amusement 
but likewise instruction. ” 

THE STRANGER. —On these matters I had facts 
to communicate; on the geological scheme of the 
early history of the globe there are only analogies 
to guide us, which different minds may apply and 
interpret in different ways; but, I will not trifle 
with a long preliminary discourse. Astronomical 
deductions and actual measures by triangulation 
prove, that the globe is an oblate spheroid flattened 



THE UNKNOWN. 


141 


at the poles; and, this form we know, by strict 
mathematical demonstrations, is precisely the one 
which a fluid body revolving round its axis and 
become solid at its surface by the slow dissipation 
of its heat or other causes, would assume. I 
suppose therefore, that the globe, in the first state 
in which the imagination can venture to consider 
it, was a fluid mass with an immense atmosphere 
revolving in space round the sun, and that, by its 
cooling, a portion of its atmosphere was condensed 
in water which occupied a part of the surface. 
In this state, no forms of life, such as now belong 
to our system, could have inhabited it; and, I 
suppose the crystalline rocks, or, as they are called 
by geologists, the primary rocks, which contain no 
vestiges of a former order of things, were the 
results of the first consolidation on its surface. 
Upon the further cooling, the water which more or 
less had covered it, contracted; depositions took 
place, shell fish and coral insects of the first 
creation began their labours; and islands appeared 
in the midst of the ocean raised from the deep by 



142 


DIALOGUE III. 


the productive energies of millions of zoophytes. 
These islands became covered with vegetables 
fitted to bear a high temperature, such as palms 
and various species of plants similar to those which 
now exist in the hottest parts of the world. And, 
the submarine rocks or shores of these new forma¬ 
tions of land became covered with aquatic vege¬ 
tables, on which various species of shell fish and 
common fishes found their nourishment. The 
fluids of the globe in cooling deposited a large 
quantity of the materials they held in solution, 
and these deposits agglutinating together the sand, 
the immense masses of coral rocks and some of 
the remains of the shells and fishes found round 
the shores of the primitive lands, produced the 
first order of secondary rocks. As the temperature 
of the globe became lower, species of the oviparous 
reptiles were created to inhabit it;—and the turtle, 
crocodile, and various gigantic animals of the sauri 
kind seem to have haunted the bays and waters of 
the primitive lands. But in this state of things 
there was no order of events similar to the present; 



THE UNKNOWN. 


143 


—the crust of the globe was exceedingly slender 
and the source of fire a small distance from the 
surface. In consequence of contraction in one 
part of the mass, cavities were opened, which 
caused the entrance of water, and immense volcanic 
explosions took place, raising one part of the 
surface, depressing another, producing mountains 
and causing new and extensive depositions from 
the primitive ocean. Changes of tins kind must 
have been extremely frequent in the early epochs 
of nature; and the only living forms of which the 
remains are found in the strata that are the monu¬ 
ments of these changes, are those of plants, fishes, 
birds, and oviparous reptiles, which seem most 
fitted to exist in such a war of the elements. 
When these revolutions became less frequent; and 
the globe became still more cooled, and the in¬ 
equalities of its temperature preserved by the 
mountain chains, more perfect animals became its 
inhabitants, many of which, such as the mammoth, 
megalonix, megatherium, and gigantic hyaena, are 
now extinct. At this period, the temperature of 



144 


DIALOGUE III. 


the ocean seems to have been not much higher 
than it is at present, and the changes produced by 
occasional eruptions of it have left no consolidated 
rocks. Yet, one of these eruptions appears to 
have been of great extent and some duration, 
and seems to have been the cause of those 
immense quantities of water-worn stones, gravel 
and sand, which are usually called diluvian 
remains; — and, it is probable that this effect 
was connected with the elevation of a new 
continent in the southern hemisphere by volcanic 
fire. When the system of things became so per¬ 
manent, that the tremendous revolutions depending 
upon the destruction of the equilibrium between 
the heating and cooling agencies were no longer 
to be dreaded, the creation of man took place; and 
since that period there has been little alteration in 
the physical circumstances of our globe. Volcanos 
sometimes occasion the rise of new islands, portions 
of the old continents are constantly washed by 
rivers into the sea, but these changes are too 
insignificant to affect the destinies of man, or the 



THE UNKNOWN. 


145 


nature of the physical circumstances of things. 
On the hypothesis that I have adopted, however, 
it must be remembered that the present surface of 
the globe is merely a thin crust surrounding a 
nucleus of fluid ignited matter; and consequently, 
we can hardly be considered as actually safe from 
the danger of a catastrophe by fire. 

Onuphrio said, “ Prom the view you have taken, 
I conclude that you consider volcanic eruptions as 
owing to the central fire; indeed their existence 
offers, I think, an argument for believing that the 
interior of the globe is fluid.” The stranger 
answered; “I beg you to consider the views I 
have been developing as merely hypothetical, one 
of the many resting places that may be taken by 
the imagination in considering this subject. 
There are, however, distinct facts in favour of 
the idea, that the interior of the globe has a 
higher temperature than the surface,—such as 
the heat increasing in mines the deeper we pene¬ 
trate, and the number of warm sources which 
rise from great depths, in almost all countries. 



146 


DIALOGUE III. 


The opinion, that volcanos are owing to this 
general and simple cause, is I think likewise 
more agreeable to the analogies' of things, than to 
suppose them dependent upon partial chemical 
changes, such as the action of air and water upon 
the combustible bases of the earths and alkalies; 
though it is extremely probable that these sub¬ 
stances may exist beneath the surface, and may 
occasion some results of volcanic fire. And, on 
this subject, my notion may perhaps be more 
trusted, as for a long while I thought volcanic 
eruptions were owing to chemical agencies of the 
newly discovered metals of the earths and alkalies; 
and I made many and some dangerous experi¬ 
ments in the hope of confirming this notion, but 
in vain.” 

A MB. —We are much indebted to you for your 
geological illustrations; but they remind me a 
little of some of the ideas of our friend Philalethes 
in his remarkable vision and with which we may 
at some time amuse you in return for your geology, 
should we be honoured with more of your com- 



THE UNKNOWN. 


147 


pany. You are obliged to have recourse to 
creations for all the living beings in your philo¬ 
sophical romance. I do not see why you should 
not suppose creations or arrangements of dead 
matter by the same laws of infinite wisdom, and 
why our globe should not rise at once a divine 
work fitted for all the objects of living and intel¬ 
ligent natures. 

The stranger replied, “ I have merely attempted 
a philosophical history founded upon the facts 
known respecting rocks and strata and the remains 
they contain. I begin with what may be considered 
a creation, a fluid globe supplied with an immense 
atmosphere, and the series of phenomena which I 
imagine consequent to the creation, I suppose 
produced by powers impressed upon matter by 
omnipotence.” 

Ambrosio said, "There is this verisimility in 
your history, that it is not contradictory to the 
little we are informed by revelation as to the 
origin of the globe, the order produced in the 
chaotic state, and the succession of living forms 



148 


DIALOGUE III. 


generated in the days of creation,, which may be 
what philosophers call ‘ the epochas of nature/ for 
a day with omnipotence is as a thousand years, 
and a thousand years as one day.” 

“I must object,” Onuphrio said, “to your 
interpretation of the scientific view of our new 
acquaintance, and to your disposition to blend 
them with the cosmogony of Moses. Allowing 
the divine origin of the book of Genesis, you must 
admit that it was not intended to teach the Jews 
systems of philosophy, but the laws of life and 
morals; and a great man and an exalted Christian 
raised his voice two centuries ago against this 
mode of applying and of often wresting the sense 
of the Scriptures to make them conformable to 
human fancies; f from which/ says Lord Bacon, 
' arise not only false and fantastical philosophies, 
but likewise heretical religions/ If the Scriptures 
are to be literally interpreted and systems of science 
found in them, Galileo Galilei merited his perse¬ 
cution, and we ought still to believe that the sun 
turns round the earth.” 



THE UNKNOWN. 


149 


A MB .— You mistake my view, Onuphrio, if you 
imagine I am desirous of raising a system of 
geology on the book of Genesis. It cannot be 
doubted that the first man was created with a great 
variety of instinctive or inspired knowledge, which 
must have been likewise enjoyed by his descendants; 
and some of this knowledge could hardly fail to 
have related to the globe which he inhabited and 
to the objects which surrounded him. It would 
have been impossible for the human mind to have 
embraced the mysteries of creation; or to have 
followed the history of the moving atoms from 
their chaotic disorder into their arrangement in 
the visible universe,—to have seen dead matter 
assuming the forms of life and animation, and 
light and power arising out of death and sleep. 
The ideas therefore transmitted to or presented by 
Moses respecting the origin of the world and of 
man were of the most simple kind, and such as 
suited the early state of society. But though 
general and simple truths, they were divine truths, 
yet clothed in a language and suited to the ideas 



150 


DIALOGUE III. 


of a rude and uninstructed people. And, when I 
state my satisfaction in finding that they are not 
contradicted by the refined researches of modern 
geologists, I do not mean to deduce from them a 
system of science. I believe that light was the 
creation of an act of the divine will, but I do not 
mean to say that the words “ Let there be light, 
and there was light,” were orally spoken by the 
Deity; nor, do I mean to imply, that the modern 
discoveries respecting light are at all connected 
with this sublime and magnificent passage. 

ONU .— Having resided for a long time at Edin¬ 
burgh and having heard a number of discussions 
on the theory of Dr. Hutton, or the plutonic theory 
of geology, and having been exceedingly struck 
both by its simplicity and beauty, its harmony with 
existing facts and the proofs afforded to it by some 
beautiful chemical experiments, I do not feel 
disposed immediately to renounce it for the views 
which I have just heard explained; for the prin¬ 
cipal facts which our new acquaintance has stated 
are, I think, not inconsistent with the refined 



THE UNKNOWN. 


151 


philosophical systems of Professor Playfair and 
Sir James Hall. 

THE UNKNOWN. —I have no objection to the 
refinedplutonic view , as capable of explaining many 
existing phenomena ; indeed you must be aware that 
I have myself had recourse to it. What I contend 
against is, its application to explain the formations 
of the secondary rocks, which I think clearly belong 
to an order of facts not at all embraced by it. In 
the plutonic system, there is one simple and constant 
order assumed, which may be supposed eternal. The 
surface is imagined to be constantly disintegrated, 
destroyed, degraded and washed into the bosom 
of the ocean by water, and as constantly consolidated, 
elevated, and regenerated oy fire; and the ruins of 
the old form the foundations of the new world. It is 
supposed that there are always the same types both 
of dead and living matter, that the remains of rocks, 
of vegetables and animals of one age are found 
imbedded in rocks raised from the bottom of the 
ocean in another. Now to support this view, not 
only the remains of living beings which at present 




152 


DIALOGUE III. 


people the globe, might be expected to be found 
in the oldest secondary strata, but even those of 
the arts of man, the most powerful and populous 
of its inhabitants, which is well known not to be 
the case. On the contrary, each stratum of the 
secondary rocks contains remains of peculiar and 
mostly now unknown species of vegetables and 
animals. In those strata which are deepest and 
which must consequently be supposed to be the 
earliest deposited, forms even of vegetable life are 
rare: shells and vegetable remains are found in 
the next order: the bones of fishes and oviparous 
reptiles exist in the following class: the remains 
of birds, with those of the same genera mentioned 
before, in the next order: those of quadrupeds of 
extinct species, in a still more recent class; and, 
it is only in the loose and slightly consolidated 
strata of gravel and sand, and which are usually 
called diluvian formations, that the remains of 
animals, such as now people the globe, are found 
with others belonging to extinct species. But in 
none of these formations, whether called secondary, 



THE UNKNOWN. 


153 


tertiary, or diluvial, have the remains of man or 
any of his works been discovered. It is, I think, 
impossible to consider the organic remains found 
in any of the earlier secondary strata, the lias- 
limestone and its congenerous formations for 
instance, without being convinced, that the beings, 
whose organs they formed, belonged to an order of 
things entirely different from the present. Gigantic 
vegetables, more nearly allied to the palms of the 
equatorial countries than to any other plants, 
can only be imagined to have lived in a very 
high temperature; and the immense reptiles, the 
megalosauri .with paddles instead of legs and 
clothed in mail, in size equal or even superior to 
the whale; and the great amphibia, plethiosauri 
with bodies like turtles, but furnished with necks 
longer than their bodies, probably to enable them 
to feed on vegetables growing in the shallows of 
the primitive ocean, seem to show a state in which 
low lands or extensive shores rose above an 
immense calm sea, and when there were no great 
mountain chains to produce inequalities of tern- 



154 


DIALOGUE III. 


perature, tempests or storms. Were the surface 
of the earth now to be carried down into the 
depths of the ocean, or were some great revolution 
of the waters to cover the existing land, and it 
was again to be elevated by fire, covered with 
consolidated depositions of sand or mud, how 
entirely different would it be in its characters from 
any of the secondary strata. Its great features 
would undoubtedly be the works of man; hewn 
stones and statues of bronze and marble and tools 
of iron, and human remains would be more 
common than those of animals, on the greatest 
part of the surface. The columns of Psestum or of 
Agrigentum, or the immense iron and granite 
bridges of the Thames would offer a striking 
contrast to the bones of the crocodiles or sauri in 
the older rocks, or even to those of the mammoth 
or elephas primigenius in the diluvial strata. 
And, whoever dwells upon this subject must be 
convinced, that the present order of things and 
the comparatively recent existence of man as 
the master of the globe, is as certain as the 



THE UNKNOWN. 


155 


destruction of a former and a different order and 
the extinction of a number of living forms which 
have now no types in being, and which have left 
their remains wonderful monuments of the revolu¬ 
tions of nature. 

ONU. —I am not quite convinced by your 
arguments. Supposing the lands of New Holland 
were to be washed into the depths of the ocean, 
and to be raised according to the Huttonian view, 
as a secondary stratum, by subterraneous fire, they 
would contain the remains of both vegetables and 
animals entirely different from any found in the 
strata of the old continents. And, may not those 
peculiar formations to which you have referred, be, 
as it were, accidents of nature belonging to peculiar 
parts of the globe ? And, you speak of a diluvian 
formation, which I conclude you would identify 
with that belonging to the catastrophe described in 
the sacred writings, in which no human remains 
are found. Now, you surely will not deny, that 
man existed at the time of this catastrophe, and he 
consequently may have existed at the period of the 



15 6 


DIALOGUE III. 


other revolutions, which are supposed to be pro¬ 
duced in the Huttonian views by subterraneous fire. 

THE UNKNOWN. —I have made use of the term 
diluvian, because it has been adopted by geologists, 
but without meaning to identify the cause of the 
formations with the deluge described in the sacred 
writings. I apply the term merely to signify loose 
and water-worn strata not at all consolidated, and 
deposited by an inundation of water. And in these 
countries which they have covered, man certainly did 
not exist. With respect to your argument derived 
from New Holland, it appears to me to be without 
weight. In a variety of climates, and in very 
distant parts of the globe, secondary strata of the 
same order are found, and they contain always the 
same kind of organic remains, which are entirely 
different from any of those now afforded by beings 
belonging to the existing order of things. The 
catastrophes which produced the secondary strata 
and diluvian depositions, could not have been local 
and partial phenomena, but must have extended 
over the whole, or a great part of the surface of 



THE UNKNOWN. 


157 


the globe. The remains of similar shell fishes are 
found in the lime-stones of the old and new 
continents; the teeth of the mammoth are not 
uncommon in various parts of Europe; entire 
skeletons have been found in America, and even 
the skin covered with hair and the entire body of 
one of these enormous extinct animals has been 
discovered in Siberia preserved in a mass of ice. 
In the oldest secondary strata, there are no remains 
of such animals as now belong to the surface; and 
in the rocks which may be regarded as more 
recently deposited, these remains occur but rarely 
and with abundance of extinct species. There 
seems, as it were, a gradual approach to the present 
system of things and a succession of destructions 
and creations preparatory to the existence of man. 
It will be useless to push these arguments farther. 
You must allow that it is impossible to defend the 
proposition, that the present order of things is the 
ancient and constant order of nature, only modified 
by existing laws; and consequently, the view which 
vou have supported must be abandoned. The 




158 


DIALOGUE III. 


monuments of extinct generations of animals are as 
perfect as those of extinct nations; and it would be 
more reasonable to suppose that the pillars and 
temples of Palmyra were raised by the wandering 
Arabs of the desert, than to imagine that the 
vestiges of peculiar animated forms in the strata 
beneath the surface belonged to the early and 
infant families of the beings that at present 
inhabit it. 

ONU. —I am convinced;—I shall push my 
arguments no further, for I will not support the 
sophisms of that school, which supposes that living 
nature has undergone gradual changes by the 
effects of its irritabilities and appetencies; that the 
fish has in millions of generations ripened into the 
quadruped, and the quadruped into the man; and 
that the system of life by its own inherent powers 
has fitted itself to the physical changes in the 
system of the universe. To this absurd, vague, 
atheistical doctrine, I prefer even the dream of 
plastic powers, or that other more modern dream, 
that the secondary strata were created, filled with 



THE UNKNOWN. 


159 


remains as it were of animal life to confound the 
speculations of our geological reasoners. 

THE UNKNOWN.-^- 1 am glad you have not 
retreated into the desert and defenceless wilderness 
of scepticism, or of false and feeble philosophy. I 
should not have thought it worth my while to have 
followed you there; I should as soon t hi nk of 
arguing with the peasant who informs me that the 
basaltic columns of Antrim or of Stalfa were the 
works of human art and raised by the giant 
Finmacoul. 

At this moment, one of our servants came to 
inform me, that a dinner which had been preparing 
for us at the farm-house was ready;—we asked the 
stranger to do us the honour to partake of our 
repast; he assented, and the following conversation 
took place at table. 

PHIL. —In reflecting upon our discussions this 
morning, I cannot help being a little surprised at 
their nature; we have been talking only of 
geological systems; when a more natural subject 
for our conversation would have been these 




160 


DIALOGUE III. 


magnificent temples, and an inquiry into the race 
by whom they were raised and the gods to whom 
they were dedicated. We are now treading on a 
spot which contains the bones of a highly civilised 
and powerful people; yet we are almost ignorant 
of the names they bore; and the period of their 
greatness is lost in the obscurity of time. 

A MB .— There can be no doubt that the early 
inhabitants of this city were Grecians and a 
maritime and commercial people ;—they have been 
supposed to belong to the Sybarite race, and the 
roses producing flowers twice a year in the spring 
and autumn in ancient times here, might sanction 
the idea that this balmy spot was chosen by a 
colony who carried luxury and refinement to the 
highest pitch. 

ONU. —To attempt to form any opinion with 
respect to the people that anciently inhabited these 
now deserted plains is useless, and a vain labour. 
In the geological conversation which took place 
before dinner, some series of interesting facts were 
presented to us; and the monuments of nature, 



THE UNKNOWN. 


161 


though they do not speak a distinct language, yet 
speak an intelligible one;—but with respect to 
Psestum, there is neither history nor tradition to 
guide us; and we shall do wisely to resume our 
philosophical inquiries, if we have not already 
exhausted the patience of our new guest by doubts 
or objections to his views. 

THE STRANGER. —One of you referred in our 
conversation this morning to a vision, which had 
some relation to the subject of our discussion, and 
I was promised some information on this matter. 

I immediately gave a sketch of my vision, and of 
the opinions which had been expressed by Ambrosio 
on the early history of man, and the termination of 
our discussions on religion. 

THE STRANGER. —I agree with Ambrosio in 
opinion on the subjects you have just mentioned. 
In my youth, I was a sceptic; and this I believe is 
usually the case with young persons given to 
general and discursive reading, and accustomed to 
adopt something like a mathematical form in their 
reasonings; and it was in considering the nature 



162 


DIALOGUE TIL 


of the intellectual faculties of brutes, as compared 
with those of man, and in examining the nature of 
instinctive powers, that I became a believer. 
After I had formed the idea that revelation was to 
man in the place of an instinct, my faith constantly 
became stronger, and it was exalted by many 
circumstances I had occasion to witness in a 
journey that I made through Egypt and a part of 
Asia Minor, and by no one more than by a very 
remarkable dream which occurred to me in Palestine, 
and which, as we are now almost at the hour of the 
siesta, I will relate to you, though perhaps you will 
be asleep before I have finished it. I was walking 
along that deserted shore on which are the ruins 
of Ptolemais, one of the most ancient ports of 
Judaea; it was evening; the sun was sinking in 
the sea. I seated myself on a rock, lost in 
melancholy contemplations on the destinies of a 
spot once so famous in the history of man; the 
calm Mediterranean, bright in the glowing light of 
the west, was the only object before me. “ These 
waves,” I said to myself, “ once bore the ships of 



THE UNKNOWN. 


163 


the monarch of Jerusalem which were freighted 
with the riches of the East to adorn and honour 
the sanctuary of Jehovah; here are now no remains 
of greatness or of commerce, a few red stones and 
broken bricks only mark what might have been 
once a flourishing port, and the citadel* above, raised 
by the Saracens, is filled with Turkish soldiers ” 
The Janissary who was my guide, and my servant, 
were preparing some food for me in a tent which had 
been raised for the purpose, and whilst waiting for 
their s umm ons to my repast, I continued my 
reveries, which must gradually have ended in 
slumber. I saw a man approaching towards me, 
whom, at first, I took for my janissary, but as he 
came nearer I found a very different figure. He 
was a very old man with a beard as white as snow; 
his countenance was dark but paler than that of 
an Arab, and his features stern, wild, and with a 
peculiar, savage expression; his form was gigantic, 
but his arms were withered, and there was a large 
scar on the left side of his face which seemed to 
have deprived him of an eye. He wore a black 



164 


DIALOGUE III. 


turban and black flowing robes, and there was a 
large chain round his waist which clanked as he 
moved. It occurred to me that he was one of the 
santons or sacred madmen so common in the East, 
and I retired as he approached towards me. He 
called out “ Ely not, stranger, fear me not, I will 
not harm you; you shall hear my story, it may be 
useful to you.” He spoke in Arabic, but in a 
peculiar dialect and to me new, yet I understood 
every word. “You see before you,” he said, “ a 
man who was educated a Christian, but who re¬ 
nounced the worship of the one supreme God for 
the superstitions of the pagans. I became an 
apostate in the reign of the emperor Julian, and I 
was employed by that sovereign to superintend the 
re-erection of the temple of Jerusalem, by which 
it was intended to belie the prophecies and give 
the death-blow to the holy religion. History has 
informed you of the result. My assistants were 
most of them destroyed in a tremendous storm; I 
was blasted by lightning from heaven (he raised 
his withered hand to his face and eye) but suffered 



THE UNKNOWN . 


165 


to live, and expiate my crime in the flesh. My 
life has been spent in constant and severe penance, 
and in that suffering of the spirit produced by 
guilt, and is to be continued as long as any part 
of the temple of Jupiter, in which I renounced my 
faith, remains in this place. I have lived through 
fifteen tedious centuries, but I trust in the mercies 
of Omnipotence, and I hope my atonement is 
completed. I now stand in the dust of the pagan 
temple. You have just thrown the last fragment 
of it over the rock. My time is arrived, I come! ” 
As he spake the last words, he rushed towards the 
sea, threw himself from the rock and disappeared. 
I heard no struggling, and saw nothing but a 
gleam of light from the wave that closed above 
him. I was now roused by the cries of my servant 
and of the janissary, who were shaking my arm, 
and who informed me that my sleep was so sound 
that they were alarmed for me. When I looked 
on the sea, there was the same light, and I seemed 
to see the very spot in the wave where the old man 
had sunk. I was so struck by the vision, that I 



166 


DIALOGUE III . 


asked if they had not seen something dash into the 
wave, and if they had not heard somebody speaking 
to me as they arrived. Of course their answers 
were negative. In passing through Jerusalem and 
in coasting the Dead Sea I had been exceedingly 
struck by the present state of Judaea and the 
conformity of the fate of the Jewish nation to the 
predictions of our Saviour; I had likewise been 
reading Gibbon's eulogy of Julian, and his account 
of the attempts made by that emperor to rebuild 
the temple: so that the dream at such a time and 
in such a place was not an unnatural occurrence, 
yet it was so vivid, and the image of the subject of it 
so peculiar, that it long affected my imagination, and 
whenever I recurred to it, strengthened my faith. 

ONU —I believe all the narratives of apparitions 
and ghost stories are founded upon dreams of the 
same kind as that which occurred to you,—an ideal 
representation of events in the local situation in 
which the person is at the moment, and when the 
imaginary picture of the place in sleep exactly 
coincides with its reality in waking. 



THE UNKNOWN. 


167 


THE STRANGER. —I agree with you in your 
opinion. If my servant had not been with me, 
and my dream had been a little less improbable, it 
would have been difficult to have persuaded me 
that I had not been visited by an apparition. 

I mentioned the dream of Brutus, and said, 
“ His supposed evil genius appeared in his tent; 
had the philosophical hero dreamt that his genius 
had appeared to him in Borne, there could have 
been no delusion.” I cited the similar vision, 
recorded of Dion before his death, by Plutarch, of 
a gigantic female, one of the Pates or Puries, who 
was supposed to have been seen by him when 
reposing in the portico of his palace. I referred 
likewise to my own vision of the beautiful female, 
the guardian angel of my recovery, who always 
seemed to me to be present at my bedside. 

AMB. —In confirmation of this opinion of 
Onuphrio, I can mention many instances. I once 
dreamt that my door had been forced, that there 
were robbers in my room, and that one of them was 
actually putting his hand before my mouth to 



168 


DIALOGUE III. 


ascertain if I was sleeping naturally; I awoke at 
this moment, and was some minutes before I could 
be sure whether it was a dream or a reality; I felt 
the pressure of the bedclothes on my lips, and 
still in the fear of being murdered continued to 
keep my eyes closed and to breathe slowly, till 
hearing nothing and finding no motion, I ventured 
to open my eyes, but even then, when I saw 
nothing, I was not sure that my impression was a 
dream till I had risen from my bed and ascertained 
that the door was still locked. 

ONU. —I am the only one of the party unable to 
record any dreams of the vivid and peculiar nature 
you mention from my own experience; I conclude 
it is owing to the dulness of my imagination. I 
suppose the more intense power of reverie is a symp¬ 
tom of the poetical temperament; and perhaps, 
0 

if I possessed more enthusiasm, I should always 
have possessed more of the religious instinct. To 
adopt the idea of Philalethes of hereditary character, 
I fear my forefathers have not been correct in 
their faith. 



THE UNKNOWN. 


169 


A MB. —Your glory will be greater in establishing 
a new character, and I trust even the conversation 
of this day has given you an additional reason to 
adopt our faith. 

Ambrosio spoke these last words with an 
earnestness unusual in him, and with something of 
a tone which marked a zeal for proselytism, and at 
the same time he cast his eyes on the rosary which 
was suspended round the neck of the stranger, and 
said, “I hope I am not indiscreet in saying our 
faith ” 

THE STRANGER. —I was educated in the ritual 
of the church of England; I belong to the church 
of Christ; the rosary which you see suspended 
round my neck, is a memorial of sympathy and 
respect for an illustrious man. I will, if you will 
allow me, give you the history of it, which I think, 
from the circumstances with which it is connected, 
you will not find devoid of interest. I was 
passing through Erance in the reign of Napoleon, 
by the peculiar privilege granted to a savant on 
my road into Italy. I had just returned from the 



170 


DIALOGUE III. 


Holy Land, and had in my possession two or three 
of the rosaries which are sold to pilgrims at 
Jerusalem as having been suspended in the Holy 
Sepulchre. Pius VII. was then in imprisonment 
at Pontainbleau. By a special favour, on the plea 
of my return from the Holy Land, I obtained 
permission to see this venerable and illustrious 
pontiff. I carried with me one of my rosaries. 
He received me with great kindness; I tendered 
my services to execute any commissions, not 
political ones, he might think fit to entrust me 
with in Italy, informing him that I was an 
Englishman. He expressed his thanks, but declined 
troubling me. I told him I was just returned 
from the Holy Land, and bowing with great 
humility, offered to him my rosary from the Holy 
Sepulchre. He received it with a smile, touched it 
with his lips, gave his benediction over it and 
returned it into my hands, supposing of course 
that I was a Boman Catholic. I had meant to 
present it to his Holiness, but the blessing he had 
bestowed upon it and the touch of his lips made it 



THE UNKNOWN. 


171 


a precious relic to me and I restored it to my neck, 
round which it has ever since been suspended. 
He asked me some unimportant questions 
respecting the state of the Christians at Jerusalem; 
and on a sudden, turned the subject, much to my 
surprise, to the destruction of the Trench in Eussia, 
and in an exceedingly low tone of voice, as if afraid 
of being overheard, he said, “ The nefas has long 
been triumphant over the fas, but I do not doubt 
that the balance of things is even now restoring, 
that God will vindicate his church, clear his polluted 
altars, and establish society upon its permanent 
basis of justice and faith; we shall meet again, 
adieu!” and he gave me his paternal blessing. 
It was eighteen months after this interview, 
that I went out with almost the whole popu¬ 
lation of Eome, to receive and welcome the 
triumphal entry of this illustrious father of the 
church into his capital. He was borne on the 
shoulders of the most distinguished artists headed 
by Canova; and never shall I forget the enthusiasm 
with which he was received,—it is impossible to 



172 


DIALOGUE III. 


describe the shouts of triumph and of rapture sent 
up to heaven by every voice. And when he gave 
his benediction to the people, there was an univer¬ 
sal prostration, a sobbing and marks of emotions 
of joy almost like the bursting of the heart; I 
heard, everywhere around me, cries of “ the holy 
Father, the most holy Father, his restoration is the 
work of God; ” I saw tears streaming from the 
eyes of almost all the women about me, many of 
them were sobbing hysterically, and old men were 
weeping as if they had been children. I pressed 
my rosary to my breast on this occasion, and 
repeatedly touched with my lips that part of it which 
had received the kiss of the most venerable pontiff. 
I preserve it with a kind of hallowed feeling as the 
memorial of a man, whose sanctity, firmness, meek¬ 
ness and benevolence are an honour to his church 
and to human nature; and it has not only been 
useful to me, by its influence upon my own mind, 
but it has enabled me to give pleasure to others, 
and has I believe been sometimes beneficial in 
insuring my personal safety. I have often gratified 



THE UNKNOWN. 


173 


the peasants of Apulia and Calabria by presenting 
them to kiss a rosary from the Holy Sepulchre 
which had been hallowed by the touch of the lips 
and benediction of the Pope; and, it has been 
even respected by and procured me a safe passage 
through a party of brigands who once stopped me 
in the passes of the Appenines. 

ONU. —The use you have made of this relic 
puts me in mind of a device of a very ingenious 
geological philosopher now living. He was on 
Etna and busily employed in making a collection 
of the lavas formed from the igneous currents of 
that mountain: the peasants were often trouble¬ 
some to him, suspecting that he was searching for 
treasures; it occurred to liim, to make the fol¬ 
lowing speech to them; "I have been a great 
sinner in my youth, and as a penance I have made 
a vow to carry away with me pieces of every kind 
of stone found upon the mountain; permit me 
quietly to perform my pious duty, that I may 
receive absolution for my sins.” The speech 
produced the desired effect; the peasants shouted 



174 


DIALOGUE III. 


“ the holy man, the saint,” and gave him every 
assistance in their power to enable him to carry off 
his burden, and he made his ample collections 
with the utmost security and in the most agree¬ 
able manner. 

THE STRANGER .— I do not approve of pious 
frauds even for philosophical purposes. My rosary 
excited in others the same kind of feeling which it 
excited in my own bosom, and which I hold to be 
perfectly justifiable, and of which I shall never be 
ashamed. 

A MB .— You must have travelled in Italy in very 
dangerous times; have you always been secure ? 

THE STRANGER. —Always. I have owed my 
security, partly, as I have said, to my rosary, but 
more to my dress and my acquaintance with the 
dialect of the natives. I have always taken with 
me a peasant as a guide, who has been intrusted 
with the small sums of money I wanted for my 
immediate purposes, and my baggage has been 
little more than a cynic philosopher would have 
carried with him, and when I have been unable to 



THE UNKNOWN. 


175 


walk, I have trusted myself to the conduct of a 
vetturino, a native of the province, with his single 
mule and caratella. 

The sun was now setting, and the temple of 
Neptune was glowing with its last purple rays. 
We were informed that our horses were waiting 
and that it was time for us to depart to our 
lodgings at Eboli. I asked the stranger to be our 
companion and to do us the honour to accept of a 
seat in our carriage: he declined the invitation, 
and said, “ My bed is prepared in the casina here 
for this night, and to-morrow I proceed on a 
journey connected with scientific objects in the 
parts of Calabria, the scene of the terrible earth¬ 
quakes of 1783.” I held out my hand to him in 
parting; he gave it a strong and warm pressure, 
and said, “Adieu, we shall meet again.” 




The Austrian Alps from Gosau. Sketched by Lady Murchison. (Seepage 192.) 


DIALOGUE THE FOURTH. 


THE PROTEUS, OR IMMORTALITY. 

The impression made upon my mind by the 
stranger, with whom we became acquainted at 
Peestum, was of the strongest and most extraordi- 







THE PROTEUS, OR IMMORTALITY. 177 


nary kind. The memory of his person, his dress, 
his manners, the accents of his voice, and the tone 
of his philosophy, for a long while haunted my 
imagination in a most unaccountable manner, and 
even formed a part of my dreams. It often 
occurred to me, that this was not the first time 
that I had seen him, and I endeavoured, but in 
vain, to find some type or image of him in former 
scenes of my life. I continually made inquiries 
respecting him amongst my acquaintance, but I 
could never be sure that any of them knew him, or 
even had seen him. So great were his peculiari¬ 
ties, that he must have escaped observation alto¬ 
gether, for had he entered the world at all he 
must have made some noise in it. I expressed so 
much interest on this subject, that at last it 
became a source of ridicule amongst my acquaint¬ 
ance, who often asked me, if I had not yet obtained 
news of my spirit-friend or ghost-seer. 

After my return from Naples to Rome, I was 
almost immediately recalled to England by a 
melancholy event, the death of a very near and 



178 


DIALOGUE IV. 


dear relation, and I left my two friends, Ambrosio 
and Onuphrio, to pursue their travels, which were 
intended to be of some extent and duration. 

In my youth, and through the prime of man¬ 
hood, I never entered London without feelings of 
pleasure and hope. It was to me as the grand 
theatre of intellectual activity, the field of every 
species of enterprise and exertion, the metropolis 
of the world of business, thought, and action. 
There I was sure to find the friends and companions 
of my youth, to hear the voice of encouragement 
and praise. There society of the most refined 
kind offered daily its banquets to the mind, with 
such variety that satiety had no place in them, and 
new objects of interest and ambition were con¬ 
stantly exciting attention either in politics, litera¬ 
ture, or science. 

I now entered this great city in a very different 
tone of mind, one of settled melancholy, not 
merely produced by the mournful event which 
recalled me to my country, but owing likewise to 
an entire change in the condition of my physical, 



THE PROTEUS, OR IMMORTALITY. 179 


moral, and intellectual being. My health was 
gone, my ambition was satisfied, I was no longer 
excited by the desire of distinction; what I regarded 
most tenderly was in the grave, and to take a 
metaphor, derived from the change produced by 
time in the juice of the grape, my cup of life was 
no longer sparkling, sweet, and effervescent;—it 
had lost its sweetness without losing its power, and 
it had become bitter. 

After passing a few months in England and 
enjoying (as much as I could enjoy any thing) the 
society of the few friends who still remained alive, 
the desire of travel again seized me. I had 
preserved, amidst the wreck of time, one feeling 
strong and unbroken, the love of natural scenery; 
and this, in advanced life, formed a principal motive 
for my plans of conduct and action. Of all the 
climates of Europe, England seems to me most 
fitted for the activity of the mind, and the least 
suited to repose. The alterations of a climate so 
various and rapid continually awake new sensations, 
and the changes in the sky from dryness to 




180 


DIALOGUE IV. 


moisture, from the blue ethereal to cloudiness and 
fogs, seem to keep the nervous system in a constant 
state of disturbance. In the mild climate of Nice, 
Naples, or Sicily, where, even in winter, it is 
possible to enjoy the warmth of the sunshine in the 
open air beneath palm trees, or amidst evergreen 
groves of orange trees, covered with odorous fruit 
and sweet-scented leaves, mere existence is a 
pleasure, and even the pains of disease are 
sometimes forgotten amidst the balmy influence of 
nature, and a series of agreeable and uninterrupted 
sensations invite to repose and oblivion. But in 
the changeful and tumultuous atmosphere of 
England, to be tranquil is a labour, and employment 
is necessary to ward off the attacks of ennui. The 
English as a nation are pre-eminently active, and 
the natives of no other country follow their objects 
with so much force, fire and constancy. And, as 
human powers are limited, there are few examples 
of very distinguished men living in this country to 
old age; they usually fail, droop and die before 
they have attained the period naturally marked for 



THE PROTEUS, OR IMMORTALITY. 181 


the end of human existence. The lives of our 
statesmen, warriors, poets, and even philosophers 
offer abundant proofs of the truth of this opinion. 
Whatever burns, consumes; ashes remain. Before 
the period of youth is passed, grey hairs usually 
cover those brows which are adorned with the civic 
oak or the laurel; and in the luxurious and 
exciting life of the man of pleasure, their tints are 
not even preserved by the myrtle wreath or the 
garland of roses from the premature winter of time. 

In selecting the scenes for my new journey I 
was guided by my former experience. I know no 
country more beautiful than that which may be 
called the Alpine country of Austria, including the 
Alps of the southern Tyrol, those of Illyria, the 
Noric and the Julian Alps, and the Alps of Styria 
and Salzburg. The variety of the scenery, the 
verdure of the meadows and trees, the depths of 
the valleys, the altitude of the mountains, the 
clearness and grandeur of the rivers and lakes give 
it, I think, a decided superiority over Switzerland. 
And the people are far more agreeable; various in 



182 


DIALOGUE IV. 


tlieir-/ costumes and manners, Illyrians, Italians or 
Germans, they have all the same simplicity of 
character, and are all distinguished by their love of 
their country, their devotion to their sovereign, the 
warmth and purity of their faith, their honesty, and 
(with very few exceptions) I may say, their great 
civility and courtesy to strangers. 

In the prime of life I had visited this region in 
a society which afforded me the pleasures of 
intellectual friendship and the delights of refined 
affection. Later, I had left the burning summer 
of Italy and the violence of an unhealthy passion, 
and had found coolness, shade, repose and 
tranquillity there. In a still more advanced period, 
I had sought for and found consolation, and partly 
recovered my health after a dangerous illness, the 
consequence of labour and mental agitation;—there 
I had found the spirit of my early vision. I 
was desirous therefore of again passing some time 
in these scenes, in the hope of re-establishing a 
broken constitution; and though this hope was a 
feeble one, yet, at least, I expected to spend a few 



THE PROTEUS, OR IMMORTALITY. 183 


of the last days of life more tranquilly and more 
agreeably than in the metropolis of my own 
country. Nature never deceives us; the rocks, the 
mountains, the streams, always speak the same 
language; a shower of snow may hide the verdant 
woods in spring, a thunder-storm may render the 
blue limpid streams foul and turbulent; but these 
effects are rare and transient,—in a few hours, or at 
least days, all the sources of beauty are renovated. 
And, nature affords no continued trains of 
misfortunes and miseries such as depend upon the 
constitution of humanity, no hopes for ever blighted 
in the bud, no beings full of life, beauty and 
promise taken from us in the prime of youth. 
Her fruits are all balmy, bright and sweet; she 
affords none of those blighted ones so common in 
the life of man and so like the fabled apples of the 
Dead Sea, fresh and beautiful to the sight, but 
when tasted full of bitterness and ashes. I have 
already mentioned the strong effect produced on 
my mind by the Stranger, whom I had met so 
accidentally at Psestum; the hope of seeing him 



184 


DIALOGUE IV. 


again was another of my motives for wishing to 
leave England, and (why I know not) I had a 
decided presentiment that I was more likely to 
meet him in the Austrian states than in England, 
his own country. 

Eor this journey I had one companion, an early 
friend and medical adviser. He had lived much in 
the world, had acquired a considerable fortune, 
had given up his profession, was now retired and 
sought like myself in this journey repose of mind 
and the pleasures derived from natural scenery. 
He was a man of a very powerful and acute under¬ 
standing, but had less of the poetical temperament 
than any person whom I had ever known with 
similar vivacity of mind. He was a severe thinker, 
with great variety of information, an excellent 
physiologist and an accomplished naturalist. In 
his reasonings, he adopted the precision of a geo¬ 
meter, and was always upon his guard against the 
influence of imagination. He had passed the 
meridian of life, and his health was weak like my 
own, so that we were well suited as travelling 



THE PROTEUS, OR IMMORTALITY. 185 


companions, moving always slowly from place to 
place without hurry or fatigue. I shall call this 
friend Eubathes. I will say nothing of the pro¬ 
gress of our journey through Prance and Germany; 
I shall dwell only upon that part of it which lias 
still a strong interest for me and where events 
occurred that I shall never forget. We passed 
into the Alpine country of Austria by Lintz on the 
Danube, and followed the course of the Traun to 
Gmiinden on the Traun See or lake of the Traun, 
where we halted for some days. If I were disposed 
to indulge in minute picturesque descriptions I 
might occupy hours with details of the various 
characters of the enchanting scenery in this neigh¬ 
bourhood. The vales have that pastoral beauty 
and constant verdure which is so familiar to us in 
England, with similar enclosures and hedge-rows 
and fruit and forest trees. Above are noble hills 
planted with beeches and oaks; mountains bound 
the view, here covered with pines and larches, there 
raising their marble crests capped with eternal 
snows above the clouds. The lower part of the 



186 


DIALOGUE IV. 


Traun See is always, even in the most rainy season, 
perfectly pellucid; and the Traun pours out of it 
over ledges of rocks a large and magnificent river, 
beautifully clear, and of the purest tint of the 
beryl. The fall of the Traun about ten miles below 
Gmunden was one of our favourite haunts. It is 
a cataract, which, when the river is full, may be 
almost compared with that of Schaffhausen for 
magnitude, and possesses the same peculiar cha¬ 
racters of grandeur in the precipitous rush of its 
awful and overpowering waters, and of beauty in 
the tints of its streams and foam, and in the forms 
of the rocks over which it falls, and the cliffs and 
woods by which it is overhung. In this spot an 
accident, which had nearly been fatal to me, 
occasioned the renewal of my acquaintance in an 
extraordinary manner with the mysterious unknown 
stranger. Eubathes, who was very fond of fly¬ 
fishing, was amusing himself by catching graylings 
for our dinner in the stream above the fall. I 
took one of the boats which are used for descending 
the canal or lock artificially cut in the rock by the 



THE PROTEUS , OR IMMORTALITY . 187 


side of the fall, on which salt and wood are usually 
transported from Upper Austria to the Danube; 
and I desired two of the peasants to assist my 
servant in permitting the boat to descend by a rope 
to the level of the river below. My intention was 
to amuse myself by this rapid species of locomotion 
along the descending sluice. For some moments 
the boat glided gently along the smooth current, 
and I enjoyed the beauty of the moving scene 
around me, and had my eye fixed upon the bright 
rainbow seen upon the spray of the cataract above 
my head, when I was suddenly roused by a shout 
of alarm from my servant, and looking round I 
saw that the piece of wood to which the rope had 
been attached had given way and the boat was 
floating down the river at the mercy of the stream. 
I was not at first alarmed, for I saw that my assis¬ 
tants were procuring long poles with which it 
appeared easy to arrest the boat before it entered 
the rapidly descending water of the sluice, and I 
called out to them to use their united force to 
reach the longest pole across the water that I 



188 


DIALOGUE IV. 


might be able to catch the end of it in my hand. 
And at this moment I felt perfect security; but a 
breeze of wind suddenly came down the valley and 
blew from the nearest bank, the boat was turned 
by it out of the side current and thrown nearer to 
the middle of the river, and I soon saw that I was 
likely to be precipitated over the cataract. My 
servant and the boatmen rushed into the water, 
but it was too deep to enable them to reach the 
boat; I was soon in the white water of the 
descending stream and my danger was inevitable. 
I had presence of mind enough to consider, whether 
my chance of safety would be greater by throwing 
myself out of the boat, or by remaining in it, and I 
preferred the latter expedient. I looked from the 
rainbow upon the bright sun above my head, as if 
taking leave for ever of that glorious luminary; 
I raised one pious aspiration to the divine source 
of light and life; I was immediately stunned 
by the thunder of the fall and my eyes were 
closed in darkness. How long I remained 
insensible I know not. My first recollections 



THE PROTEUS, OR IMMORTALITY. 189 


after this accident were of a bright light shining 
above me, of warmth and pressure in different 
parts of my body, and of the noise of the rushing 
cataract sounding in my ears. I seemed awakened 
by the light from a sound sleep, and endeavoured 
to recall my scattered thoughts, but in vain; I 
soon fell again into slumber. Prom this second 
sleep, I was awakened by a voice which seemed 
not altogether unknown to me, and looking up¬ 
wards, I saw the bright eye and noble countenance 
of the Unknown Stranger whom I had met at 
Paestum. I faintly articulated “ I am in another 
world.” “ No,” said the stranger, “ you are safe in 
this; you are a little bruised by your fall, but you 
will soon be well; be tranquil and compose your¬ 
self. Your friend is here, and you will want no 
other assistance than he can easily give you.” He 
then took one of my hands, and I recognised the 
same strong and warm pressure which I had felt 
from his parting salute at Paestum. Eubathes, 
whom I now saw with an expression of joy and of 
warmth unusual to him, gave a hearty shake to 



190 


DIALOGUE IV. 


the other hand, and they both said; “You must 
repose a few hours longer.” After a sound sleep 
till the evening, I was able to take some refresh¬ 
ment, and found little inconvenience from the 
accident, except some bruises on the lower part of 
the body, and a slight swimming in the head. The 
next day, I was able to return to Gmiinden, where 
I learnt from the Unknown the history of my 
escape, which seemed almost miraculous to me. 
He said, that he was often in the habit of com¬ 
bining pursuits of natural history with the amuse¬ 
ments derived from rural sports, and was fishing, 
the day that my accident happened, below the fall 
of the Traun, for that peculiar species of the large 
salmo of the Danube which fortunately for me is 
only to be caught by very strong tackle. He saw, 
to his very great astonishment and alarm, the boat 
and my body precipitated by the fall; and was so 
fortunate as to entangle his hooks in a part of my 
dress when I had been scarcely more than a minute 
under water, and by the assistance of his servant, 
who was armed with the gaff or curved hook for 



THE PROTEUS, OR IMMORTALITY. 191 


landing large fish, I was safely conveyed to the 
shore, undressed, put into a warm bed, and by the 
modes of restoring suspended animation, which 
were familiar to him, I soon recovered my sensi¬ 
bility and consciousness. I was desirous of reason¬ 
ing with liim and Eubathes upon the state of 
annihilation of power and transient death which I 
had suffered when in the water; but they both 
requested me to defer those inquiries which re¬ 
quired too profound an exertion of thought, till 
the effects of the shock on my weak constitution 
were over and my strength was somewhat re¬ 
established ; and, I was the more contented to 
comply with their request, as the Unknown said, 
it was his intention to be our companion for at 
least some days longer, and that his objects of 
pursuit lay in the very country in which we were 
making our summer tour. It was some weeks 
before I was sufficiently strong to proceed on our 
journey, for my frame was little fitted to bear such 
a trial as that which it had experienced; and con¬ 
sidering the weak state of my body when I was 



192 


DIALOGUE IV. 


immerged in the water, I could hardly avoid 
regarding my recovery as providential and the 
presence and assistance of the Stranger as in some 
way connected with the future destiny and utility 
of my life. In the middle of August we pursued 
our plans of travel. We first visited those roman¬ 
tic lakes Hallsstadt, Aussee and Toplitz See, which 
collect the melted snows of the higher mountains 
of Styria, to supply the unfailing sources of the 
Traun. We visited that elevated region of the 
Tyrol, which forms the crest of the Pusterthal, and 
where the same chains of glaciers send down 
streams to the Drave and the Adige, to the Black 
Sea and to the Adriatic. We remained for many 
days in those two magnificent valleys which afford 
the sources of the Save, where that glorious and 
abundant river rises as it were in the very bosom 
of beauty, leaping from its subterraneous reservoirs 
in the snowy mountains of Terglou and Manhardt 
in thundering cataracts amongst cliffs and woods 
into the pure and deep cerulean lakes of Wochain 
and Wurzen, and pursuing its course amidst 



THE PROTEUS, OR IMMORTALITY. 193 


pastoral meadows so ornamented with plants and 
trees as to look the garden of nature. The subsoil 
or strata of this part of Illyria are entirely calca¬ 
reous and full of subterranean caverns, so that in 
every declivity large funnel-shaped cavities, like 
the craters of volcanos, may be seen, in which the 
waters that fall from the atmosphere are lost; and 
almost every lake or river has a subterraneous 
source, and often a subterraneous exit. The 
Laibach river rises twice from the limestone rock, 
and is twice again swallowed up by the earth before 
it makes its final appearance and is lost in the 
Save. The Zirknitz See or lake is a mass of water 
entirely filled and emptied by subterraneous sources; 
and its natural history, though singular, has in it 
nothing of either prodigy, mystery or wonder. The 
grotto of the Maddalena at Adelsberg occupied 
more of our attention than the Zirknitz See. I 
shall give the conversation that took place in that 
extraordinary cavern, entire, as well as I can 
remember it, in the words used by my companions. 

EUB.— We must be many hundred feet below 



194 


DIALOGUE IV. 


the surface; yet the temperature of this cavern is 
fresh and agreeable. 

THE UNKNOWN.— This cavern has the mean 
temperature of the atmosphere, which is the case 
with all subterraneous cavities removed from the 
influence of the solar light and heat; and, in so 
hot a day in August as this, I know no more 
agreeable or salutary manner of taking a cold bath 
than in descending to a part of the atmosphere out 
of the influence of those causes which occasion its 
elevated temperature. 

EUB. —Have you, Sir, been in this country 
before ? 

THE UNKNOWN.— This is the third summer that 
I have made it the scene of an annual visit. Inde¬ 
pendently of the natural beauties found in Illyria, 
and the various sources of amusement which a 
traveller fond of natural history may find in this 
region, it has had a peculiar object of interest for 
me in the extraordinary animals which are found in 
the bpttom of its subterraneous cavities; I allude 
to the Proteus anguinus,—a far greater wonder of 



THE PROTEUS, OR IMMORTALITY. 195 


nature than any of those which the Baron Yalvasor 
detailed to the Royal Society, a century and half 
ago, as belonging to Carniola, with far too 
romantic an air for a philosopher. 

PHIL.— I have seen these animals, in passing 
through this country before; but I should be 
very glad to be better acquainted with their 
natural history. 

THE UNKNOWN.—We shall soon be in that part 
of the grotto where they are found; and, I shall 
willingly communicate the little that I have been 
able to learn respecting their natural characters 
and habits. 

EUB.— The grotto now becomes really magnifi¬ 
cent ; I have seen no subterraneous cavity with so 
many traits of beauty and of grandeur. The 
irregularity of its surface, the magnitude of the 
masses broken in pieces which compose its sides 
and which seem tom from the bosom of the 
mountain by some great convulsion of nature, their 
dark colours and deep shades form a singular 
contrast with the beauty, uniformity, I may say, 

o 2 



196 


DIALOGUE IV. 


order and grace of the white stalactitical concretions 
which hang from the canopy above, and where the 
light of our torches reflected from the brilliant or 
transparent calcareous gems create a scene which 
almost looks like one produced by enchantment. 

PHIL. —If the awful chasms of dark masses of 
rock surrounding us, appear like the work of 
demons who might be imagined to have risen from 
the centre of the earth, the beautiful works of 
nature above our heads may be compared to a 
scenic representation of a temple or banquet hall 
for fairies or genii, such as those fabled in the 
Arabian romances. 

THE UNKNOWN.— A poet might certainly place 
here the palace of the king of the Gnomes, and 
might find marks of his creative power in the 
small lake close by, on which the flame of the 
torch is now falling; for, there it is that I expect 
to find the extraordinary animals which have been 
so long the objects of my attention. 

EUB.— I see three or four creatures, like slender 
fish, moving on the mud below the water. 



THE PROTEUS, OR IMMORTALITY. 197 


THE UNKNOWN.— \ see them; they are the 
Protei; now I have them in my fishing net, and 



now they are safe in the pitcher of water. At first 
view, you might suppose this animal to be a lizard, 
but it has the motions of a fish. Its head and the 
lower part of its body and its tail bear a strong 
resemblance to those of the eel; but it has no 
fins; and its curious branchial organs are not like 
the gills of fishes; they form a singular vascular 
structure, as you see, almost like a crest, round 
the throat, which may be removed without occa¬ 
sioning the death of the animal, who is likewise 
furnished with lungs. With this double apparatus 





198 


DIALOGUE IV. 


for supplying air to the blood, it can live either 
below or above the surface of the water. Its fore¬ 
feet resemble hands, but they have only three 
claws or fingers, and are too feeble to be of use in 
grasping or supporting the weight of the animal. 
The hinder feet have only two claws or toes, and in 
the larger specimens are found so imperfect as to 
be almost obliterated. It has small points in place 
of eyes, as if to preserve the analogy of nature. It 
is of a fleshy whiteness and transparency in its 
natural state, but when exposed to light, its skin 
gradually becomes darker, and at last gains an 
olive tint. Its nasal organs appear large; and it 
is abundantly furnished with teeth, from which it 
may be concluded, that it is an animal of prey, yet 
in its confined state, it has never been known to 
eat, and it has been kept alive for many years by 
occasionally changing the water in which it was 
placed. 

EUB. —Is this the only place in Carniola where 
these animals are found ? 

THE UNKNOWN. —They were first discovered 



THE PROTEUS, OR IMMORTALITY. 199 


here by the late Baron Zois; but they have since 
been found, though rarely, at Sittich, about thirty 
miles distant, thrown up by water from a subter¬ 
raneous cavity; and I have lately heard it reported 
that some individuals of the same species have 
been recognised in the calcareous strata in 
Sicily. 

EUR .— This lake in which we have seen these 
animals is a very small one; do you suppose they 
are bred here ? 

THE UNKNOWN .— Certainly not; in dry seasons 
they are seldom found here, but after great rains 
they are often abundant. I think it cannot be 
doubted, that their natural residence, is in an 
extensive deep subterranean lake, from which in 
great floods they sometimes are forced through the 
crevices of the rocks into this place where they are 
found; and, it does not appear to me impossible, 
when the peculiar nature of the country in which 
we are is considered, that the same great cavity 
may furnish the individuals which have been found 
at Adelsburg and at Sittich. 



200 


DIALOGUE IV. 


EUB .— This is a very extraordinary view of the 
subject. Is it not possible that it may be the 
larva of some large unknown animal inhabiting 
these limestone cavities ? Its feet are not in harmony 
with the rest of its organisation, and were they 
removed, it would have all the characters of 
a fish. 

THE UNKNOWN. —I cannot suppose that they 
are larvae. There is I believe in nature no instance 
of a transition by this species of metamorphosis, 
from a more perfect to a less perfect animal. The 
tadpole has a resemblance to a fish before it becomes 
a frog; the caterpillar and the maggot gain not 
only more perfect powers of motion on the earth 
in their new state, but acquire organs by which 
they inhabit a new element. This animal, I dare 
say, is much larger than we now see it, when 
mature in its native place; but its comparative 
anatomy is exceedingly hostile to the idea that it is 
an animal in a state of transition. It has been 
found of various sizes, from that of the thickness 
of a quill to that of the thumb, but its form of 



THE PROTEUS, OR IMMORTALITY. 201 


organs has been always the same. It is surely a 
perfect animal of a peculiar species. And it adds 
one instance more to the number already known 
of the wonderful manner in which life is produced 
and perpetuated in every part of our globe, even 
in places which seem the least suited to organised 
existences.—And the same infinite power and wis¬ 
dom which has fitted the camel and the ostrich for 
the deserts of Africa, the swallow that secretes its 
own nest for the caves of Java, the whale for the 
Polar seas, and the morse and white bear for the 
Arctic ice, has given the Proteus to the deep and 
dark subterraneous lakes of Illyria,—an animal to 
whom the presence of light is not essential, and 
who can live indifferently in air and in water, on 
the surface of the rock, or in the depths of the mud. 

PHIL. —It is now ten years since I first visited 
this spot. I was exceedingly anxious to see the 
Proteus, and came here with the guide in the 
evening of the day I arrived at Adelsberg, but 
though we examined the bottom of the cave with 
the greatest care, we could find no specimens. We 



202 


DIALOGUE IV. 


returned the next morning and were more fortu¬ 
nate, for we discovered five close to the bank on 
the mud covering the bottom of the lake; the mud 
was smooth and perfectly undisturbed, and the 
water quite clear. This fact of their appearance 
during the night, seemed to me so extraordinary, 
that I could hardly avoid the fancy that they were 
new creations. I saw no cavities through which 
they could have entered, and the undisturbed state 
of the lake seemed to give weight to my notion. 
My reveries became discursive, I was carried in 
imagination back to the primitive state of the 
globe, when the great animals of the sauri kind 
were created under the pressure of a heavy atmo¬ 
sphere ; and my notion on this subject was not 
destroyed, when I heard from a celebrated anato¬ 
mist, to whom I sent the specimens I had collected, 
that the organisation of the spine of the Proteus 
was analogous to that of one of the sauri, the 
remains of which are found in the older secondary 
strata. It was said at this time that no organs of 
reproduction had been discovered in any of the 



THE PROTEUS, OR IMMORTALITY. 203 


specimens examined by physiologists, and this lent 
a weight to my opinion of the possibility of their 
being actually new creations, which I suppose you 
will condemn as wholly visionary and unphilo- 
sophical. 

EVB. — From the tone in which you make your 
statements, I think you yourself consider them as 
unworthy of discussion. On such ground, eels 
might be considered new creations for their mature 
ovaria have not yet been discovered, and they come 
from the sea into rivers under circumstances when 
it is difficult to trace their course. 

THE UNKNOWN. —The problem of the reproduc¬ 
tion of the Proteus, like that of the common eel, is 
not yet solved; but ovaria have been discovered in 
animals of both species, and in this instance as in 
all others belonging to the existing order of things, 
Harvey’s maxim of “ omne vivum ab ovo ” 
will apply. 

EUB .— You just now said, that this animal has 
been long an object of attention to you; have you 
studied it as a comparative anatomist, in search of 



204 


DIALOGUE IV. 


the solution of the problem of its reproduc¬ 
tion ? 

THE UNKNOWN. —No; this inquiry has been 
pursued by much abler investigators, by Schreiber 
and Configliachi; my researches were made upon 
its respiration and the changes occasioned in water 
by its branchiae. 

EUB. —I hope they have been satisfactory. 

THE UNKNOWN. —They proved to me at least, 
that not merely the oxygen dissolved in water, but 
likewise a part of the azote, was absorbed in the 
respiration of this animal. 

EUB. —So that your researches confirm those of 
the French savans and Alexander von Humboldt, 
that in the respiration of animals which separate 
air from water both principles of the atmosphere 
are absorbed. 

PHIL. —I have heard so many and such various 
opinions on the nature of the function of respira¬ 
tion, during my education, and since, that I should 
like to know what is the modern doctrine on this 
subject: I can hardly refer to better authority than 



THE PROTEUS, OR IMMORTALITY. 205 


yourself, and I have an additional reason for wish¬ 
ing for some accurate knowledge on this matter, 
having, as you well know, been the subject of an ex¬ 
periment in relation to it which, but for your kind 
and active assistance, must have terminated fatally. 

THE UNKNOWN.— I shall gladly state what I 
know, which is very little. In physics and in 
chemistry, the science of dead matter, we possess 
many facts and a few principles or laws, but 
whenever the functions of life are considered, 
though the facts are numerous, yet there is, as yet, 
scarcely any approach to general laws; and we 
must usually end where we begin by confessing our 
entire ignorance. 

EUB. —I will not allow this ignorance to be 
entire; something, undoubtedly, has been gained 
by the knowledge of the circulation of the blood 
and its aeration in the lungs,—these, if not laws, 
are at least fundamental principles. 

THE UNKNOWN. —I speak only of the functions 
in their connexion with life. We are still ignorant 
of the source of animal heat, though half a century 



206 


DIALOGUE IV. 


ago the chemists thought they had proved it was 
owing to a sort of combustion of the carbon of 
the blood. 

PHIL .— As we return to our inn, I hope you 
will both be so good as give me your views of the 
nature of this function, so important to all living 
beings; tell me what you know or what you believe , 
or what others imagine they know. 

THE UNKNOWN. —The powers of the organic 
system depend upon a continued state of change ; 
the waste of the body produced in muscular action, 
perspiration, and various secretions, is made up for 
by the constant supply of nutritive matter to the 
blood by the absorbents, and by the action of the 
heart the blood is preserved in perpetual motion 
through every part of the body. In the lungs, or 
bronchia, the venous blood is exposed to the 
influence of air, and undergoes a remarkable change, 
being converted into arterial blood. The obvious 
chemical alteration of the air is sufficiently simple 
in this process; a certain quantity of carbon only is 
added to it, and it receives an addition of heat and 



THE PROTEUS, OR IMMORTALITY. 207 


moisture; the volumes of elastic fluid inspired and 
expired (making allowance for change of tempera¬ 
ture) are the same, and if ponderable agents only 
were to be regarded, it would appear as if the only 
use of respiration were to free the blood from a 
certain quantity of carbonaceous matter. But it is 
probable that this is only a secondary object, and 
that the change produced by respiration upon the 
blood is of a much more important kind. Oxygen, 
in its elastic state, has properties which are very 
characteristic; it gives out light by compression, 
which is not certainly known to be the case with 
any other elastic fluid except those with which 
oxygen has entered without undergoing com¬ 
bustion ; and from the fire it produces in certain 
processes, and from the manner in which it is 
separated by positive electricity in the gaseous 
state from its combinations, it is not easy to avoid 
the supposition, that it contains, besides its 
ponderable elements, some very subtile matter 
which is capable of assuming the form of heat and 
light. My idea is, that the common air inspired 



208 


DIALOGUE IV. 


enters into the venous blood entire, in a state of 
dissolution, carrying with it its subtile or ethereal 
part, which in ordinary cases of chemical change is 
given off; that it expels from the blood carbonic 
acid gas and azote; and that, in the course of the 
circulation, its ethereal part and its ponderable 
part undergo changes which belong to laws that 
cannot be considered as chemical,—the ethereal 
part probably producing animal heat and other 
effects, and the ponderable part contributing to 
form carbonic acid and other products. The 
arterial blood is necessary to all the functions of 
life, and it is no less connected with the irritability 
of the muscles and the sensibility of the nerves 
than with the performance of all the secretions. 

EUB .— No one can be more convinced than I am 
of the very limited extent of our knowledge in 
chemical physiology; and, when I say, that having 
been a disciple and friend of Dr. Black I am still 
disposed to prefer his ancient view to your new 
one, I wish merely to induce you to pause and to 
hear my reasons; they may appear insufficient to 



THE PROTEUS, OR IMMORTALITY. 209 


you, but I am anxious to explain them. First, 
then, in all known chemical changes in which 
oxygen gas is absorbed and carbonic acid gas 
formed, heat is produced: I could mention a 
thousand instances, from the combustion of wood 
or spirits of wine, to the fermentation of fruit, or 
the putrefaction of animal matter. This general 
fact, which may be almost called a law, is in favour 
of the view of Dr. Black. Another circumstance 
in favour of it is, that those animals which possess 
the highest temperature consume the greatest 
quantity of air; and, under different circumstances 
of action and repose, the heat is in great measure 
proportional to the quantity of oxygen consumed. 
Then, those animals which absorb the smallest 
quantity of air are cold blooded. Another argu¬ 
ment in favour of Dr. Black's opinion is, the 
change of colour of blood from black to red; which 
seems to show that it loses carbon. 

THE UNKNOWN. —With the highest respect for 
the memory of Dr. Black, and for the opinion of 
his disciple, I shall answer the arguments I have 



210 


DIALOGUE IV. 


just heard. I will not allow any facts or laws from 
the action of dead matter to apply to living 
structures; the blood is a living fluid, and of this 
we are sure, that it does not burn in respiration. 
The terms warmth and cold, as applied to the blood 
of animals, are improper, in the sense in which 
they have been just used: all animals are in fact 
warm-blooded; and the degrees of their temperature 
are fitted to the circumstances under which they 
live; and those animals the life of which is most 
active, possess most heat, which may be the result 
of general actions, and not a particular effect of 
respiration. Besides, a distinguished physiologist 
has rendered it probable, that the animal heat 
depends more upon the functions of the nerves than 
upon any result of respiration. The argument, 
derived from change of colour is perfectly delusive: 
it would not follow, if carbon were liberated from 
the blood, that it must necessarily become brighter; 
sulphur combining with charcoal becomes a clear 
fluid, and a black oxide of copper becomes red in 
uniting with a substance which abounds in carbon. 



THE PROTEUS , OR IMMORTALITY. 211 


No change in sensible qualities can ever indicate 
with precision the nature of chemical change. 

I shall resume my view, which I cannot be said 
to have fully developed. When I stated that 
carbonic acid was formed in the venous blood in 
the processes of life, I meant merely to say, that 
this blood, in consequence of certain changes, 
became capable of giving off carbon and oxygen in 
union with each other. The moment inorganic 
matter enters into the composition of living organs 
it obeys new laws. The action of the gastric juice 
is chemical and it will only dissolve dead matters, 
and it dissolves them when they are in tubes of 
metal as well as in the stomach, but it has no 
action upon living matter. Respiration is no more 
a chemical process than the absorption of chyle ; 
and the changes that take place in the lungs though 
they appear so simple may be very complicated; it 
is as little philosophical to consider them as a mere 
combustion of carbon, as to consider the formation 
of muscle from the arterial blood as crystallisation. 
There can be no doubt that all the powers and 



212 


DIALOGUE IV. 


agencies of matter are employed in the purposes of 
organisation, but the phenomena of organisation 
can no more be referred to chemistry than those of 
chemistry to mechanics. As oxygen stands in that 
electrical relation to the other elements of animal 
matter which has been called electro-positive, it may 
be supposed, that some electrical function is exer¬ 
cised by oxygen in the blood; but this is a mere 
hypothesis. An attempt has been made, founded 
on experiments on the decomposition of bodies by 
electricity, to explain secretion by weak electrical 
powers, and to suppose the glands electrical organs, 
and even to imagine the action of the nerves 
dependent upon electricity. These, like all other 
notions of the same kind, appear to me very little 
refined. If electrical effects be the exhibition of 
certain powers belonging to matter, 'which is a fair 
supposition, then no change can take place without 
their being more or less concerned: but, to imagine 
the presence of electricity to solve phenomena, the 
cause of which is unknown, is merely to substitute 
one undefined word for another. In some animals 



THE PROTEUS , OR IMMORTALITY. 213 


electrical organs are found, but, then, they furnish 
the artillery of the animal and means of seizing its 
prey and of its defence. And speculations of this 
kind must be ranked with those belonging to some 
of the more superficial followers of the Newtonian 
philosophy, who explained the properties of animated 
nature by mechanical powers, and muscular action 
by the expansion and contraction of elastic blad¬ 
ders. Man, in this state of vague philosophical in¬ 
quiry, was supposed a species of hydraulic machine. 
And when the pneumatic chemistry was invented, 
organic structures were soon imagined to be labo¬ 
ratories in which combinations and decomposi¬ 
tions produced all the effects of living actions; 
then, muscular contractions were supposed to 
depend upon explosions like those of the detonating 
compounds, and the formation of blood from chyle 
was considered as a pure chemical solution. And, 
now that the progress of science has opened new 
and extraordinary views in electricity, these views 
are not unnaturally applied by speculative reasoners 
to solve some of the mysterious and recondite 



214 


DIALOGUE IV. 


phenomena of organised beings. But the analogy 
is too remote and incorrect. The sources of life 
cannot be grasped by such machinery. To look for 
them in the powers of electro-chemistry is seeking 
the living among the dead;—that which touches 
will not be felt, that which sees will not be visible, 
that which commands sensations will not be 
their subject. 

PHIL. —I conclude from what you last said, that 
though you are inclined to believe that some 
unknown subtile matter is added to the organised 
system by respiration, yet you would not have us 
believe, that this is electricity, or that there is any 
reason to suppose that electricity has a peculiar and 
special share in producing the functions of life. 

THE UNKNOWN. —I wish to guard you against 
the adoption of any hypothesis on this recondite 
and abstruse subject. But however difficult it 
may be to define the exact nature of respiration, 
yet the effect of it and its connexions with the 
functions of the body are sufficiently striking. By 
the action of air on the blood it is fitted for the 



THE PROTEUS, OP IMMORTALITY. 215 


purposes of life, and from the moment that 
animation is marked by sensation or volition this 
function is performed, the punctum saliens in the 
ovum seems to receive as it were the breath of life 
in the influence of air. In the economy of the 
reproduction of the species of animals, one of the 
most important circumstances is the aeration of the 
ovum, and when this is not performed from the 
blood of the mother as in the mammalia by the 
placenta, there is a system for aerating as in the 
oviparous reptiles or fishes, which enables the air 
freely to pass through the receptacles in which the 
eggs are deposited, or the egg itself is aerated out 
of the body through its coats or shell, and when 
air is excluded, incubation or artificial heat has no 
effect. Fishes, which deposit their eggs in water 
that contains only a limited portion of air, make 
combinations which would seem almost the result 
of scientific knowledge or reason, though depending 
upon a more unerring principle—their instinct for 
preserving their offspring. Those fishes that spawn 
in spring or the beginning of summer and which 



216 


DIALOGUE IV. 


inhabit deep and still waters, as the carp, bream, 
pike, tench, &c., deposit their eggs upon aquatic 
vegetables, which by the influence of the solar light 
constantly preserve the water in a state of aeration. 
The trout, salmon, hucho and others of the salmo 
genus, which spawn in the beginning or end of 
winter and which inhabit rivers fed by cold and 
rapid streams which descend from the mountains, 
deposit their eggs in shallows on heaps of gravel, 
as near as possible to the source of the stream 
where the water is fully combined with air; and, 
to accomplish this purpose they travel for hundreds 
of miles against the current and leap over cataracts 
and dams,—thus the salmo salar ascends by the 
Ehone and the Aar to the glaciers of Switzerland; 
the hucho by the Danube, the Isar, and the Save, 
passing through the lakes of the Tyrol and Styria 
to the highest torrents of the Noric and Julian Alps. 

PHIL .— My own experience proves in the strong¬ 
est manner the immediate connexion of sensi¬ 
bility with respiration; all that I can remember 
in my accident was a certain violent and painful 



THE PROTEUS, OR IMMORTALITY. 


217 


sensation of oppression in the chest which must 
have been immediately succeeded by loss of sense. 

EUB. —I have no doubt that all your suffering 
was over at the moment you describe; as far as 
sensibility is concerned you were inanimate when 
your friend raised you from the bottom. This 
distinct connexion of sensibility with the absorp¬ 
tion of air by the blood, is I think in favour of 
the idea advanced by our friend, that some subtile 
and ethereal matter is supplied to the system in 
the elastic air which may be the cause of vitality. 

THE UNKNOWN. —Softly, if you please: I must 
not allow you to mistake my view. I think it 
probable that some subtile matter is derived from 
the atmosphere connected with the functions of 
life; but nothing can be more remote from my 
opinion than to suppose it the cause of vitality. 

PHIL. —This might have been fully inferred 
from the whole tenor of your conversation, and 
particularly from that expression “ that which 
commands sensations will not be their subject; ” I 
think I shall not mistake your views when I say, 



218 


DIALOGUE IV. 


that you do not consider vitality dependent upon 
any material cause or principle. 

THE UNKNOWN. —You do not. We are entirely 
ignorant on this subject; and I confess, in the 
utmost humility, my ignorance. I know there 
have been distinguished physiologists who have 
imagined that by organisation, powers not naturally 
possessed by matter were developed, and that 
sensibility was a property belonging to some 
unknown combination of unknown ethereal ele¬ 
ments. But such notions appear to me unphilo- 
sophical, and the mere substitution of unknown 
words for unknown things. I can never believe 
that any division, or refinement, or subtilisation, or 
juxtaposition, or arrangement of the particles of 
matter can give to them sensibility; or, that 
intelligence can result from combinations of insen¬ 
sate and brute atoms. I can as easily imagine 
that the planets are moving by their will or design 
round the sun, or that a cannon-ball is reasoning 
in making its parabolic curve. The materialists 
have quoted a passage from Locke in favour of 



THE PROTEUS, OR IMMORTALITY. 219 


their doctrine ; who seemed to doubt, “ whether it 
might not have pleased God to bestow a power of 
thinking on matter.” But with the highest 
veneration for this great reasoner, the founder of 
modern philosophical logic, I think there is little 
of his usual strength of mind in this doubt. It 
appears to me that he might as well have asked, 
whether it might not have pleased God to make a 
house its own tenant. 

EUR .— I am not a professed materialist; but I 
think you treat rather too lightly the modest 
doubts of Locke on this subject. And without 
considering me as a partizan, you will I hope 
allow me to state some of the reasons which I 
have heard good physiologists advance in favour of 
that opinion to which you are so hostile. In the 
first accretion of the parts of animated beings they 
appear almost like crystallised matter, with the 
simplest kind of life, scarcely sensitive. The 
gradual operations by which they acquire new 
organs and new powers, corresponding to these 
organs, till they arrive at full maturity, forcibly 



220 


DIALOGUE IV. 


strike the mind with the idea that the powers of 
life reside in the arrangement by which the organs 
are produced. Then, as there is a gradual increase 
of power corresponding to the increase of perfec¬ 
tion of the organisation, so there is a gradual 
diminution of it connected with the decay of the 
body. As the imbecility of infancy corresponds 
to the weakness of organisation, so the energy of 
youth and the power of manhood are marked by its 
strength; and, the feebleness and dotage of old 
age are in the direct ratio of the decline of the 
perfection of the organisation; and, the mental 
powers in extreme old age seem destroyed at the 
same time with the corporeal ones, till the ultimate 
dissolution of the frame, when the elements are 
again restored to that dead nature from which 
they were originally derived. Then, there was a 
period, when the greatest philosopher, statesman, 
or hero that ever existed was a mere living atom— 
an organised form with the sole power of percep¬ 
tion; and the combinations that a Newton 
formed before birth or immediately after, cannot 



THE PROTEUS, OR IMMORTALITY . 221 


be imagined to have possessed the slightest 
intellectual character. If a peculiar principle 
be supposed necessary to intelligence, it must 
exist throughout animated nature. The elephant 
approaches nearer to man in intellectual power, 
than the oyster does to the elephant; and a link 
of sensitive nature may be traced from the polypus 
to the philosopher. Now, in the polypus the 
sentient principle is divisible, and from one polypus 
or one earthworm may be formed two or three, 
all of which become perfect animals and have percep¬ 
tion and volition; therefore at least, the sentient 
principle has this property in common with matter, 
that it is divisible. Then to these difficulties, 
add the dependence of all the higher faculties of 
the mind upon the state of the brain; remember 
that not only all the intellectual powers, but even 
sensibility, is destroyed by the pressure of a little 
blood upon the cerebellum, and the difficulties 
increase. Call to mind likewise the suspension of 
animation in cases similar to that of our friend, 
when there are no signs of life, and when anima- 



222 


DIALOGUE IV. 


tion returns only with the return of organic action. 
Surely, in all these instances, every thing which 
you consider as belonging to spirit appears in 
intimate dependence upon the arrangements and 
properties of matter. 

THE UNKNOWN. —The arguments you have used, 
are those which are generally employed by physi¬ 
ologists. They have weight in appearance, but not 
in reality; they prove that a certain perfection of 
the machinery of the body is essential to the 
exercise of the powers of the mind,—but, they do 
not prove that the machine is the mind. Without 
the eye there can be no sensations of vision, and 
without the brain there could be no recollected 
visible ideas; but neither the optic nerve nor the 
brain can be considered as the percipient principle; 
they are but the instruments of a power which has 
nothing in common with them. What may be 
said of the nervous system may be applied to a 
different part of the frame; stop the motion of the 
heart, and sensibility and life cease, yet the living 
principle is not in the heart nor in the arterial 



THE PROTEUS, OR IMMORTALITY. 223 


blood which it sends to every part of the system. 
A savage who saw the operation of a number of 
power-looms weaving stockings cease at once on 
the stopping of the motion of a wheel, might well 
imagine that the motive force was in the wheel; 
he could not divine that it more immediately 
depended upon the steam, and ultimately upon a 
fire below a concealed boiler. The philosopher 
sees the fire which is the cause of the motion of 
this complicated machinery, so unintelligible to the 
savage; but both are equally ignorant of the divine 
fire which is the cause of the mechanism of 
organised structures. Profoundly ignorant on this 
subject, all that we can do is to give a history of 
our own minds. The external world, or matter, is 
to us in fact nothing but a heap or cluster of 
sensations, and in looking back to the memory of 
our own being, we find one principle which may 
be called the monad , or self, constantly present, 
intimately associated with a particular class of 
sensations, which we call our own body or organs. 
These organs are connected with other sensations, 



224 


DIALOGUE IV. 


and move as it were with them in circles of 
existence, quitting for a time some trains of 
sensation to return to others, but the monad is 
always present; we can fix no beginning to its 
operations, we can place no limit to them. We 
sometimes, in sleep, lose the beginning and end of 
a dream, and recollect the middle of it; and one 
dream has no connexion with another, and yet we 
are conscious of an infinite variety of dreams : and 
there is a strong analogy for believing in an infinity 
of past existences, which must have had connexion: 
and human life may be regarded as a type of 
infinite and immortal life, and its succession of 
sleep and dreams as a type of the changes of death 
and birth to which from its nature it is liable. 
That the ideas belonging to the mind were 
originally gained from those classes of sensations 
called organs, it is impossible to deny, as it is 
impossible to deny that mathematical truths depend 
upon the signs which express them; but these 
signs are not themselves the truths; nor are the 
organs the mind. The whole history of intellect is 



THE PROTEUS, OR IMMORTALITY. 225 


a history of change according to a certain law; 
and we retain the memory only of those changes 
which may be useful to us;—the child forgets what 
happened to it in the womb; the recollections of 
the infant likewise before two years are soon lost; 
yet, many of the habits acquired in that age are 
retained through life. The sentient principle 
gains thoughts by material instruments; and, its 
sensations change as those instruments change; 
and, in old age, the mind, as it were, falls asleep to 
awake to a new existence. With its present 
organisation, the intellect of man is naturally 
limited and imperfect: but, this depends upon its 
material machinery; and in a higher organised 
form, it may be imagined to . possess infinitely 
higher powers. Were man to be immortal with 
his present corporeal frame, this immortality would 
only belong to the machinery; and with respect to 
acquisitions of mind, he would virtually die every 
two or three hundred years,—that is to say, a 
certain quantity of ideas only could be remembered, 
and the supposed immortal being would be, with 


Q 



226 


DIALOGUE IV. 


respect to what had happened a thousand years 
ago, as the adult now is with respect to what 
happened in the first year of his life. To attempt 
to reason upon the manner in which the organs 
are connected with sensation would be useless : the 
nerves and brain have some immediate relation to 
these vital functions, but how they act it is 
impossible to say. Trom the rapidity and infinite 
variety of the phenomena of perception, it seems 
extremely probable that there must be in the brain 
and nerves matter of a nature far more subtile and 
refined than anything discovered in them by 
observation and experiment, and that the immediate 
connexion between the sentient principle and the 
body may be established by kinds of ethereal 
matter, which can never be evident to the senses, 
and which may bear the same relations to heat, 
light, and electricity that these refined forms or 
modes of existence of matter bear to the gases. 
Motion is most easily produced by the lighter 
species of matter; and yet imponderable agents, 
such as electricity, possess force sufficient to overturn 



THE PROTEUS , OR IMMORTALITY. 227 


the weightiest structures. Nothing can be farther 
from my meaning than to attempt any definition on 
this subject, nor would I embrace or give authority 
even to that idea of Newton, in which he supposes 
that the immediate cause of sensation may be in 
undulations of an ethereal medium. It does not, 
however, appear improbable to me, that some of the 
more refined machinery of thought may adhere, 
even in another state, to the sentient principle; 
for, though the organs of gross sensation, the 
nerves and brain, are destroyed by death, yet 
something of the more ethereal nature, wliich I 
have supposed, may be less destructible. And, I 
sometimes imagine, that many of those powers, 
which have been called instinctive, belong to 
the more refined clothing of the spirit; con¬ 
science, indeed, seems to have some undefined 
source, and may bear relation to a former state 
of being. 

EUB. —All your notions are merely ingenious 
speculations. Revelation gives no authority to 
your ideas of spiritual nature; the Christian 



228 


DIALOGUE IV. 


immortality is founded upon the resurrection of 
the body. 

THE UNKNOWN. —This I will not allow. Even 
in the Mosaic history of the creation of man, his 
frame is made in the image of God,—that is, capable 
of intelligence; and the Creator breathes into it 
the breath of life, his own essence. Then our 
Saviour has said, “ of the God of Abraham, of Isaac, 
and of Jacob.” “ He is not the God of the dead, 
but of the living.” St. Paul has described the 
clothing of the spirit in a new and glorious body; 
taking the analogy from the living germ in the 
seed of the plant, which is not quickened till after 
apparent death. And the catastrophe of our planet, 
which, it is revealed, is to be destroyed and purified 
by fire, before it is fitted for the habitation of the 
blest, is in perfect harmony with the view I have 
ventured to suggest. 

EUB. —I cannot make your notions coincide with 
what I have been accustomed to consider the 
meaning of holy writ. You allow every thing 
belonging to the material life to be dependent upon 



THE PROTEUS, OR IMMORTALITY. 229 


the organisation of the body, and yet yon imagine 
the spirit after death clothed with a new body. 
And, in the system of rewards and punishments, 
this body is rendered happy or miserable for actions 
committed by another and extinct frame. A 
particular organisation may impel to improper and 
immoral gratification. It does not appear to me 
according to the principles of eternal justice, that 
the body of the resurrection should be punished 
for crimes dependent upon a conformation now 
dissolved and destroyed. 

THE UNKNOWN. —Nothing is more absurd, I 
may say more impious, than for man, with a ken 
surrounded by the dense mists of sense, to reason 
respecting the decrees of eternal justice. You 
adopt here the same limited view that you embraced 
in reasoning against the indestructibility of the 
sentient principle in man, from the apparent 
division of the living principle in the polypus, not 
recollecting that to prove a quality can be 
increased or exalted, does not prove that it can be 
annihilated. If there be, which I think cannot 



230 


DIALOGUE IV. 


be doubted, a consciousness of good and evil 
constantly belonging to the sentient principle in 
man, then rewards and punishments naturally 
belong to acts of this consciousness, to obedience 
or disobedience ; and, the indestructibility of the 
sentient being is necessary to the decrees of eternal 
justice. On your view, even in this life , just 
punishments for crimes would be almost impossible: 
for the materials of which human beings are 
composed change rapidly, and in a few years 
probably not an atom of the primitive structure 
remains; yet even the materialist is obliged, in old 
age, to do penance for the sins of his youth, and 
does not complain of the injustice of his decrepit 
body, entirely changed and made stiff by time, 
suffering for the intemperance of his youthful 
flexible frame. On my idea, conscience is the 
frame of the mind, fitted for its probation in 
mortality. And this is in exact accordance with 
the foundations of our religion, the divine origin 
of which is marked no less by its history than by 
its harmony with the principles of our nature. 



THE PROTEUS, OR IMMORTALITY. 231 


Obedience to its precepts, not only prepares for a 
better state of existence in another world, but is 
likewise calculated to make us happy here. We 
are constantly taught to renounce sensual pleasure 
and selfish gratifications, to forget our body and 
sensible organs, to associate our pleasures with 
mind, to fix our affections upon the great ideal 
generalisation of intelligence in the one Supreme 
Being. And, that we are capable of forming to 
ourselves an imperfect idea even of the infinite 
Mind, is, I think, a strong presumption of our own 
immortality, and of the distinct relation which our 
finite knowledge bears to eternal wisdom. 

PHIL. —I am pleased with your views; they 
coincide with those I had formed at the time my 
imagination was employed upon the vision of the 
Colosseum, which I repeated to you, and are not in 
opposition with the opinions that the cool judgment 
and sound and humble faith of Ambrosio have led 
me since to embrace. The doctrine of the 
materialists was always, even in my youth, a cold, 
heavy, dull and insupportable doctrine to me, and 



232 


DIALOGUE IV. 


necessarily tending to atheism. When I had heard 
with disgust, in the dissecting rooms,, the plan of 
the physiologist, of the gradual accretion of matter 
and its becoming endowed with irritability, ripening 
into sensibility, and acquiring such organs as were 
necessary by its own inherent forces, and at last 
rising into intellectual existence; a walk into the 
green fields or woods, by the banks of rivers, 
brought back my feelings from nature, to God. I 
saw in all the powers of matter the instruments of 
the deity. The sunbeams, the breath of the zephyr 
awakened animation in forms prepared by divine 
intelligence to receive it. The insensate seed, the 
slumbering egg, which were to be vivified, appeared 
like the new born animal, works of a divine mind. 
I saw love as the creative principle in the material 
world; and this love only as a divine attribute. 
Then, my own mind, I felt connected with new 
sensations and indefinite hopes, a thirst for 
immortality. The great names of other ages and of 
distant nations appeared to me to be still living 
around me. And, even in the funeral monuments 



THE PROTEUS, OP IMMORTALITY. 233 


of the heroic and the great, I saw, as it were, the 
decree of the indestructibility of mind. These 
feelings, though generally considered as poetical, 
yet, I think, offer a sound philosophical argument 
in favour of the immortality of the soul. In all 
the habits and instincts of young animals, their 
feelings or movements may be traced in intimate 
relation to their improved perfect state; their 
sports have always affinities to their modes of 
hunting or catching their food; and young birds 
even in the nest show marks of fondness, which 
when their frames are developed become signs of 
actions necessary to the reproduction and preserva¬ 
tion of the species. The desire of glory, of honour, 
of immortal fame and of constant knowledge, so 
usual in young persons of well-constituted minds, 
cannot I think be other than symptoms of the 
infinite and progressive nature of intellect—hopes, 
which as they cannot be gratified here, belong to a 
frame of mind suited to a nobler state of existence. 

THE UNKNOWN. —Religion, whether natural or 
revealed, has always the same beneficial influence 



234 


DIALOGUE IV. 


on the mind. In youth, in health and prosperity, 
it awakens feelings of gratitude and sublime love, 
and purifies at the same time that it exalts. But 
it is in misfortune, in sickness, in age, that its 
effects are most truly and beneficially felt; when 
submission in faith and humble trust in the divine 
will, from duties become pleasures, undecaying 
sources of consolation. Then, it creates powers 
which were believed to be extinct; and gives a 
freshness to the mind, which was supposed to have 
passed away for ever, but which is now renovated 
as an immortal hope. Then, it is the Pharos, 
guiding the wave-tost mariner to his home;—as 
the calm and beautiful still basins or fiords sur¬ 
rounded by tranquil groves and pastoral meadows 
to the Norwegian pilot escaping from a heavy 
storm in the north sea;—or as the green and 
dewy spot gushing with fountains to the exhausted 
and thirsty traveller in the midst of the desert. 
Its influence outlives all earthly enjoyments, and 
becomes stronger as the organs decay and the 
frame dissolves. It appears as that evening star of 



THE PROTEUS , OR IMMORTALITY. 235 


light in the horizon of life, which, we are sure, is 
to become in another season a morning star; and it 
throws its radiance through the gloom and shadow 
of death. 






DIALOGUE THE EIETH. 


THE CHEMICAL PHILOSOPHER. 

I had been made religious by the conversations 
of Ambrosio in Italy; my faith was strengthened 
and exalted by the opinions of the Unknown, for 
whom, I had not merely that veneration awakened 
by exalted talents, but a strong affection, founded 
upon the essential benefit of the preservation of 




THE CHEMICAL PHILOSOPHER. 


237 


my life owing to him. I ventured, the evening 
after our visit to the cave of Adelsberg, to ask him 
some questions relating to his history and adven¬ 
tures. He said, to attempt to give you any idea 
of the formation of my character, would lead me 
into the history of my youth, which almost 
approaches to a tale of romance. The source of 
the little information and intelligence I possess, 
I must refer to a restless activity of spirit, a love 
of glory which ever belonged to my infancy, and 
a sensibility easily excited and not easily con¬ 
quered. My parentage was humble; yet I can 
believe a traditional history of my paternal grand¬ 
mother, that the origin of our family was from an 
old Norman stock. I found this belief upon 
certain feelings which I can only refer to an 
hereditary source,—a pride of decorum, a tact 
and refinement, even in boyhood, and which are 
contradictory to the idea of an origin from a race 
of peasants. Accident opened to me in early 
youth a philosophical career, which I pursued 
with success. In manhood, fortune smiled upon 



238 


DIALOGUE V. 


me and made me independent. I then really 
became a philosopher, and pursued my travels with 
the object of instructing myself and of benefiting 
mankind. I have seen most parts of Europe, and 
conversed, I believe, with all the illustrious men of 
science belonging to them. My life has not been 
unlike that of the ancient Greek sages. 1 have added 
some little to the quantity of human knowledge; 
and I have endeavoured to add something to the 
quantity of human happiness. In my early life 
I was a sceptic. I have informed you how I 
became a believer. And I constantly bless the 
Supreme Intelligence for the favour of some gleams 
of divine light which have been vouchsafed to me 
in this our state of darkness and doubt. 

PHIL .— I am surprised that with your powers 
you did not enter into a professional career either 
of law or politics; you would have gained the 
highest honours and distinctions. 

THE UNKNOWN .— To me there never has been 
a higher source of honour or distinction than that 
connected with advances in science. I have not 



THE CHEMICAL PHILOSOPHER. 


239 


possessed enough of the eagle in my character to 
make a direct flight to the loftiest altitudes in the 
social world; and I certainly never endeavoured 
to reach those heights by using the creeping 
powers of the reptile, who, in ascending, generally 
chooses the dirtiest path, because it is the easiest. 

EUB. —I have often wondered that men of 
fortune and of rank do not apply themselves more 
to philosophical pursuits. They offer a delightful 
and enviable road to distinction, one founded upon 
the blessings and benefits conferred on our fellow 
creatures. They do not supply the same sources 
of temporary popularity as successes in the senate 
or at the bar, but the glory resulting from them 
is permanent, and independent of vulgar taste or 
caprice. In looking back to the history of the last 
five reigns in England, we find Boyles, Cavendishes, 
and Howards, who rendered these great names 
more illustrious by their scientific honours; but 
we may in vain search the aristocracy now for 
philosophers. And there are very few persons who 
pursue science with true dignity; it is followed 



240 


DIALOGUE V. 


more as connected with objects of profit than those 
of fame; there are fifty persons who take out 
patents for supposed inventions for one who makes 
a real discovery. 

PIIIL .— The information we have already received 
from you proves to me that chemistry has been 
your favourite pursuit. I am surprised at this. 
The higher mathematics and pure physics appear 
to me to offer much more noble objects of con¬ 
templation and fields of discovery; and, practically 
considered, the results of the chemist are much 
more humble, belonging principally to the apothe¬ 
cary's shop and the kitchen. 

EUB .— I feel disposed to join you in attacking 
this favourite study of our friend, hut merely to 
provoke him to defend it. I wish our attack would 
induce him to vindicate his science, and that we 
might enjoy a little of the sport of literary gladiators, 
at least, in order to call forth his skill and awaken 
his eloquence. 

THE UNKNOWN .— I have no objection. Let 
there be a fair discussion; remember we fight only 



THE CHEMICAL PHILOSOPHER. 


241 


with foils, and the point of mine shall be covered 
with velvet. In your attack upon chemistry, 
Philalethes, yon limited the use of it to the apothe¬ 
cary^ shop and the kitchen. The first is an 
equivocal use. By introducing it into the kitchen 
you make it an art fundamental to all others. 
But if what you had stated had really been meant to 
be serious, it would not have deserved a reply; as it 
is in mere playfulness, it shall not be thrown away: 
I want eloquence, however, to adorn my subject; 
yet it is sufficiently exciting even to awaken feeling. 
Persons in general look at the magnificent fabric 
of civilised society as the result of the accumulating 
labour, ingenuity, and enterprise of man through a 
long course of ages, without attempting to define 
what has been owing to the different branches of 
human industry and science; and usually attribute 
to politicians, statesmen, and warriors, a much 
greater share than really belongs to them in the 
work;-—what they have done is in reality little. 
The beginning of civilisation is the discovery of 
some useful arts by which men acquire property, 




242 


DIALOGUE V. 


comforts, or luxuries. The necessity or desire of 
preserving them leads to laws and social insti¬ 
tutions. The discovery of peculiar arts gives 
superiority to particular nations; and the love of 
power induces them to employ this superiority to 
subjugate other nations, who learn their arts, and 
ultimately adopt their manners;—so that in reality 
the origin, as well as the progress, and improve¬ 
ment of civil society is founded in mechanical and 
chemical inventions. No people have ever arrived 
at any degree of perfection in their institutions 
who have not possessed in a high degree the 
useful and refined arts. The comparison of savage 
and civilised man, in fact, demonstrates the 
triumph of chemical and mechanical philosophy as 
the causes not only of physical, but ultimately 
even of moral improvement. Look at the 
condition of man in the lowest state in which we 
are acquainted with him. Take the native of 
New Holland, advanced only a few steps above the 
animal creation, and that principally by the use of 
fire,—naked, defending liimself against wild beasts 



THE CHEMICA L PHILOSOPHER. 


243 


or killing them for food only by weapons made of 
wood hardened in the fire, or pointed with stones 
or fish-bones; living only in holes dug out of the 
earth, or in huts rudely constructed of a few 
branches of trees covered with grass; having no 
approach to the enjoyment of luxuries or even 
comforts; unable to provide for his most pressing 
wants; having a language scarcely articulate, 
relating only to the great objects of nature, or to 
his most pressing necessities or desires; and living 
solitary or in single families, unacquainted with 
religion, government or laws, submitted to the 
mercy of nature or the elements. How different 
is man in his highest state of cultivation; every 
part of his body covered with the products of 
different chemical and mechanical arts made not 
only useful in protecting him from the inclemency 
of the seasons, but combined in forms of beauty 
and variety; creating out of the dust of the earth, 
from the clay under his feet, instruments of use 
and ornament; extracting metals from the rude 
ore and giving to them a hundred different shapes 



244 


DIALOGUE V. 


for a thousand different purposes; selecting and 
improving the vegetable productions with which 
he covers the earth; not only subduing but 
taming and domesticating the wildest, the fleetest 
and the strongest inhabitants of the wood, the 
mountain and the air; making the winds carry 
him on every part of the immense ocean; and 
compelling the elements of air, water and even 
fire, as it were to labour for him; concentrating in 
small space materials which act as the thunderbolt 
and directing their energies so as to destroy at 
immense distances; blasting the rock, removing 
the mountain, carrying water from the valley to 
the hill; perpetuating thought in imperishable 
words, rendering immortal the exertions of genius 
and presenting them as common property to all 
awakening minds,—becoming as it were the true 
image of divine intelligence receiving and bestowing 
the breath of life in the influence of civilisation. 

EUB. —Beally you are in the poetical not the 
chemical chair, or rather on the tripod. We claim 
from you some accuracy of detail, some minute 



THE CHEMICAL PHILOSOPHER. 


245 


information, some proofs of what you assert. What 
you attribute to the chemical and mechanical arts, 
we might with the same propriety attribute to the 
fine arts, to letters, to political improvement and to 
those inventions of which Minerva and Apollo and 
not Yulcan are the patrons. 

THE UNKNOWN •—I will be more minute. You 
will allow that the rendering skins insoluble in 
water by combining with them the astringent 
principle of certain vegetables is a chemical inven¬ 
tion; and that without leather our shoes, our 
carriages, our equipages would be very ill made: 
you will permit me to say, that the bleaching and 
dyeing of wool and silk, cotton and flax are chemical 
processes; and that the conversion of them into 
different clothes is a mechanical invention; that 
the working of iron, copper, tin and lead and the 
other metals, and the combining them in different 
alloys by which almost all the instruments necessary 
for the turner, the joiner, the stone-mason, the 
ship-builder and the smith are made, are chemical 
inventions; even the press, to the influence of 



246 


DIALOGUE V. 


which I am disposed to attribute as much as you 
can do, could not have existed in any state of 
perfection without a metallic alloy: the combining 
of alkali and sand, and certain clays and flints 
together, to form glass and porcelain, is a chemical 
process: the colours which the artist employs to 
frame resemblances of natural objects, or to create 
combinations more beautiful than ever existed in 
nature, are derived from chemistry:—in short, in 
every branch of the common and fine arts, in every 
department of human industry, the influence of 
this science is felt; and we may find in the fable 
of Prometheus taking the flame from heaven to 
animate his man of clay an emblem of the effects 
of fire in its application to chemical purposes in 
creating the activity and almost the life of civil 
society. 

PHIL. —It appears to me that you attribute to 
science what in many cases has been the result of 
accident. The processes of most of the useful arts, 
which you call chemical, have been invented and 
improved without any refined views, without any 



THE CHEMICAL PHILOSOPHER. 


247 


general system of knowledge. Lucretius attributes 
to accident the discovery of the fusion of the metals: 
a person in touching a shell-fish observes that it 
emits a purple liquid as a dye; hence the Tyrian 
purple : clay is observed to harden in the fire; and 
hence the invention of bricks, which could hardly 
fail ultimately to lead to the discovery of porcelain : 
even glass, the most perfect and beautiful of those 
manufactures you call chemical, is said to have 
been discovered by accident; Theophrastus states, 
that some merchants who were cooking on 
lumps of soda or natron, near the mouth of the 
river Belus, observed that a hard and vitreous 
substance was formed where the fused natron ran 
into the sand. 

THE UNKNOWN. —I will readily allow that 
accident has had much to do with the origin of 
the arts as with the progress of the sciences. But 
it has been by scientific processes and experiments 
that these accidental results have been rendered 
applicable to the purposes of common life. Besides, 
it requires a certain degree of knowledge and 



24S 


DIALOGUE V. 


scientific combination to understand and seize 
upon the facts which have originated in accident. 
It is certain, that in all fires, alkaline substances 
and sand are fused together, and clay hardened; 
yet for ages after the discovery of fire, glass and 
porcelain were unknown till some men of genius 
profited by scientific combination often observed 
but never applied. It suits the indolence of those 
minds which never attempt any thing, and which 
probably if they did attempt any thing would not 
succeed, to refer to accident that which belongs to 
genius. It is sometimes said by such persons, 
that the discovery of the law of gravitation was 
owing to accident; and a ridiculous story is told 
of the falling of an apple, as the cause of this. 
discovery. As well might the invention of fluxions 
or the architectural wonders of the dome of St. 
Peter's, or the miracles of art the St. John of 
Raphael or the Apollo Belvedere be supposed to be 
owing to accidental combinations. In the progress 
of an art, from its rudest to its more perfect state, 
the whole process depends upon experiments. 



THE CHEMICAL PHILOSOPHER. 


249 


Science is in fact nothing more than the refine¬ 
ment of common sense making use of facts 
already known to acquire new facts. Clays which 
are yellow are known to burn red; calcareous 
earth renders flint fusible,—the persons who have 
improved earthenware made their selections 
accordingly. Iron was discovered at least 1000 
years before it was rendered malleable; and from 
what Herodotus says of this discovery, there can 
be little doubt that it was developed by a scientific 
worker in metals. Vitruvius tells us, that the 
cseruleum, a colour made of copper, which exists in 
perfection in all the old paintings of the Greeks 
and Romans and on the mummies of the Egyptians, 
was discovered by an Egyptian king; there is 
therefore every reason to believe that it was not 
the result of accidental combination, but of 
experiments made for producing or improving 
colours. Amongst the ancient philosophers, many 
discoveries are attributed to Democritus and 
Anaxagoras; and, connected with chemical arts, 
the narrative of the inventions of Archimedes 



250 


DIALOGUE V. 


alone, by Plutarch, would seem to show how great 
is the effect of science in creating power. In 
modern times, the refining of sugar, the preparation 
of nitre, the manufacturing of acids, salts, &c. are 
results of pure chemistry. Take gunpowder as a 
specimen; no person, but a man infinitely 
diversifying his processes and guided by analogy, 
could have made such a discovery. Look into the 
books of the alchemists, and some idea may be 
formed of the effects of experiments. It is true, 
these persons were guided by false views, yet they 
made most useful researches; and Lord Bacon 
has justly compared them to the husbandman, who, 
searching for an imaginary treasure, fertilised the 
soil. They may likewise be compared to persons 
who, looking for gold, discover the fragments of 
beautiful statues, which separately are of no value, 
and which appear of little value to the persons 
who found them; but which, when selected and 
put together by artists and their defective parts 
supplied, are found to be wonderfully perfect and 
worthy of conservation. Look to the progress of 



THE CHEMICAL PHILOSOPHER. 251 


the arts, since they have been enlightened by a 
system of science y and observe with what rapidity 
they have advanced. Again, the steam-engine in 
its rudest form was the result of a chemical 
experiment. In its refined state, it required the 
combinations of all the most recondite principles 
of chemistry and mechanics, and that excellent 
philosopher who has given this wonderful instru¬ 
ment of power to civil society was led to the great 
improvements he made by the discoveries of a 
kindred genius on the heat absorbed when water 
becomes steam, and of the heat evolved when 
steam becomes water. Even the most superficial 
observer must allow in this case a triumph of 
science; for what a wonderful impulse has this 
invention given to the progress of the arts and 
manufactures in our country; how much has it 
diminished labour; how much has it increased the 
real strength of the country! Acting as it were with 
a thousand hands, it has multiplied our industrious 
population; and receiving its elements of activity 
from the bowels of the earth, it performs operations 



252 


DIALOGUE V. 


which formerly were painful, oppressive and 
unhealthy to the labourers, with regularity and 
constancy, and gives security and precision to the 
efforts of the manufacturer. And the inventions, 
connected with the steam-engine, at the same time 
that they have greatly diminished labour of body, 
have tended to increase power of mind and 
intellectual resources. Adam Smith well observes, 
that manufacturers are always more ingenious 
than husbandmen; and manufacturers who use 
machinery will probably always be found more 
ingenious than handicraft manufacturers. You 
spoke of porcelain as a result of accident. The 
improvements invented in this country, as well as 
those made in Germany and Trance, have been 
entirely the result of chemical experiments; the 
Dresden ajid the Sevres manufactures have been 
the work of men of science; and it was by 
multiplying his chemical researches that Wedge- 
wood was enabled to produce at so cheap a rate 
those beautiful imitations which, while they surpass 
the ancient vases in solidity and perfection of 



THE CHEMICAL PHILOSOPHER. 


253 


material, equal them in elegance, variety and 
tasteful arrangement of their forms. In another 
department, the use of the electrical conductor 
was a pure scientific combination, and the sublimity 
of the discovery of the American philosopher was 
only equalled by the happy application he 
immediately made of it. In our own times, it 
would be easy to point out numerous instances in 
which great improvements and beneficial results 
connected with the comforts, the happiness and even 
life of our fellow-creatures have been the results of 
scientific combinations : but I cannot do this 
without constituting myself a judge of the works 
of philosophers who are still alive, whose researches 
are known, whose labours are respected, and who 
will receive from posterity praises that their 
contemporaries hardly dare to bestow upon them. 

EUB. —We will allow that you have shown in 
many cases the utility of scientific investigations, as 
connected with the progress of the useful arts. 
But, in general, both the principles of chemistry 
are followed, and series of experiments performed 



254 


DIALOGUE V. 


without any view to utility; and a great noise is 
made if a new metal or a new substance is 
discovered, or, if some abstract law is made 
known relating to the phenomena of nature: yet, 
amongst the variety of new substances, few have 
been applied to any trifling use even, and the 
greater number have had no application at all; 
and, with respect to the general views of the 
science, it would be difficult to show that any real 
good had resulted from the discovery or extension 
of them. It does not add much to the dignity of 
a pursuit that those persons who have followed it 
for profit, have really been most useful ; and that 
the mere artisan or chemical manufacturer has done 
more for society than the chemical philosopher. 
Besides, it has always appeared to me, that it is in 
the nature of this science to encourage mediocrity 
and to attach importance to insignificant things. 
Yery slight chemical labours seem to give persons 
a claim to the title of philosopher; to have dissolved 
a few grains of chalk in an acid; to have shown 
that a very useless stone contains certain known 



THE CHEMICAL PHILOSOPHER. 


255 


ingredients; or that the colouring matter of a 
flower is soluble in acid and not in alkali, is 
thought by some a foundation for chemical celebrity. 
I once began to attend a course of chemical lectures 
and to read the journals containing the ephemeral 
productions of this science. I was dissatisfied with 
the nature of the evidence which the professor 
adopted in his demonstrations, and disgusted with 
the series of observations and experiments which 
were brought forward one month to be overturned 
the next. In November, there was a Zingiberic 
acid which in January was shown to have no 
existence; one year, there was a vegetable acid, 
which the next was shown to be the same as an 
acid known thirty years ago : to-day a man was 
celebrated for having discovered a new metal or a 
new alkali, and they flourished like the scenes in 
a new pantomime, only to disappear. Then, the 
great object of the hundred triflers in the science 
appeared to be to destroy the reputation of the 
three or four great men whose labours were really 
useful and had in them something of dignity. 



256 


DIALOGUE V. 


And, there not being enough of trifling results 
or false experiments to fill up the pages of the 
monthly journals, the deficiency was supplied by 
some crude theories or speculations of unknown 
persons, or by some ill-judged censure or partial 
praise of the editor. 

THE UNKNOWN. —I deny in toto the accuracy 
of what you are advancing. I have already shown 
that real philosophers, not labouring for profit, have 
done much by their own inventions for the useful 
arts; and, amongst the new substances discovered, 
many have had immediate and very important 
applications. The chlorine, or oxymuriatic gas of 
Scheele, was scarcely known before it was applied 
by Berthollet to bleaching; scarcely was muriatic 
acid gas discovered by Priestley, when Guyton de 
Morveau used it for destroying contagion. Consider 
the varied and diversified applications of platinum, 
which has owed its existence as a useful metal 
entirely to the labours of an illustrious chemical 
philosopher; look at the beautiful yellow afforded 
by one of the new metals, chrome; consider the 



THE CHEMICAL PHILOSOPHER. 


257 


medical effects of iodine, in some of the most 
painful and disgusting maladies belonging to 
human nature; and, remember how short a time 
investigations have been made for applying the new 
substances. Besides, the mechanical or chemical 
manufacturer has rarely discovered any tiling: 
he has merely applied what the philosopher has 
made known; he has merely worked upon the 
materials furnished to him. We have no history 
of the manner in which iron was rendered 
malleable; but we know that platinum could 
only have been worked by a person of the most 
refined chemical resources, who made multiplied 
experiments upon it after the most ingenious and 
profound views. But, waving all common utility, 
all vulgar applications; there is something in 
knowing and understanding the operation of 
nature; some pleasure in contemplating the order 
and harmony of the arrangements belonging to the 
terrestrial system of things. There is no absolute 
utility in poetry; but it gives pleasure, refines and 
exalts the mind. Philosophic pursuits have, like- 



258 


DIALOGUE V. 


wise, a noble and independent use of this kind: 
and there is a double reason offered for pursuing 
them; for, whilst in their sublime speculations 
they reach to the heavens, in their application they 
belong to the earth; whilst they exalt the intellect, 
they provide food for our common wants and 
likewise minister to the noblest appetites and 
most exalted views belonging to our nature. The 
results of this science are not like the temples of 
the ancients, in which statues of the gods were 
placed, where incense was offered and sacrifices 
were performed, and which were presented to the 
multitude for an adoration founded upon supersti¬ 
tious feelings ; but, they are rather like the palaces 
of the moderns, to be admired and used; and 
where the statues, which, in the ancients, raised 
feelings of adoration and awe, now produce only 
feelings of pleasure, and gratify a refined taste. 
It is surely a pure delight to know, how and by 
what processes this earth is clothed with verdure 
and life; how the clouds, mists, and rain are formed; 
what causes all the changes of this terrestrial 



THE CHEMICAL PHILOSOPHER. 


259 


system of things; and by what divine laws order 
is preserved amidst apparent confusion. It is a 
sublime occupation to investigate the cause of the 
tempest and the volcano, and to point out their 
use in the economy of things; to bring the light¬ 
ning from the clouds and make it subservient to 
our experiments; to produce, as it were, a 
microcosm in the laboratory of art; and to measure 
and weigh those invisible atoms which, by their 
motions and changes according to laws impressed 
upon them by the Divine Intelligence, constitute 
the universe of things. The true chemical philo¬ 
sopher sees good in all the diversified forms of the 
external world. Whilst he investigates the opera¬ 
tions of infinite power, guided by infinite wisdom, 
all low prejudices, all mean superstitions, disappear 
from his mind. He sees man an atom amidst 
atoms, fixed upon a point in space; and yet 
modifying the laws that are around him by under¬ 
standing them; and gaining, as it were, a kind of 
dominion over time, and an empire in material 
space, and exerting on a scale infinitely small a 



260 


DIALOGUE V. 


power, seeming a sort of shadow or reflection of a 
creative energy, and which entitles him to the 
distinction of being made in the image of God and 
animated by a spark of the Divine Mind. Whilst 
chemical pursuits exalt the understanding, they do 
not depress the imagination or weaken genuine 
feeling. Whilst they give the mind habits of 
accuracy, by obliging it to attend to facts, they 
likewise extend its analogies. And, though con¬ 
versant with the minute forms of tilings, they have 
for their ultimate end the great and magnificent 
objects of nature. They regard the formation of a 
crystal, the structure of a pebble, the nature of 
a clay or earth; and they apply to the causes of 
the diversity of our mountain chains, the appear¬ 
ances of the winds, thunder storms, meteors, the 
earthquake, the volcano, and all those phenomena 
which offer the most striking images to the poet 
and the painter. They keep alive that inextin¬ 
guishable thirst after knowledge, which is one of 
the greatest characteristics of our nature: for every 
discovery opens a new field for investigation of 



THE CHEMICAL PHILOSOPHER. 


261 


facts—shows us the imperfection of our theories. 
It has justly been said, that the greater the circle 
of light, the greater the boundary of darkness by 
which it is surrounded. This strictly applies to 
chemical inquiries. And hence they are wonderfully 
suited to the progressive nature of the human 
intellect, which, by its increasing efforts to acquire 
a higher kind of wisdom, and a state in which 
truth is fully and brightly revealed, seems, as it 
were, to demonstrate its birthright to immor¬ 
tality. 

EUB .— I am glad that our opposition has led 
you to so complete a vindication of your favourite 
science. I want no farther proof of its utility. 
I regret that I have not before made it a particular 
object of study. 

PHIL. —As our friend has so fully convinced us 
of the importance of chemistry, I hope he will 
descend to some particulars as to its real nature, 
its objects, its instruments. I would willingly 
have a definition of chemistry, and some idea of 
the qualifications necessary to become a chemist, 



262 


DIALOGUE V. 


and of the apparatus essential for understanding 
what has been already done in the science, and for 
pursuing new inquiries. 

THE UNKNOWN. —There is nothing more difficult 
than a good definition, for it is scarcely possible to 
express, in a few words, the abstract view of an 
infinite variety of facts. Dr. Black has defined 
chemistry to be, that science which treats of the 
changes produced in bodies by motions of their 
ultimate particles or atoms. But, this definition is 
hypothetical, for the ultimate particles or atoms 
are mere creations of the imagination. I will give 
you a definition, which will have the merit of 
novelty and which is probably general in its 
application. Chemistry relates to those operations 
by which the intimate nature of bodies is changed, 
or by which they acquire new properties. This 
definition will not only apply to the effects of 
mixture, but to the phenomena of electricity, and in 
short to all the changes which do not merely 
depend upon the motion or division of masses 
of matter. However difficult it may have been to 



THE CHEMICAL PHILOSOPHER. 


263 


have given you a definition of chemistry, it is still 
more difficult to give you a detail of all the 
qualities necessary for a chemical philosopher. I 
will not name as many as Athenseus has named for 
a cook, who, he says, ought to be a mathematician, 
a theoretical musician, a natural philosopher, a 
natural historian, &c. though you had a disposition 
just now to make chemistry merely subservient to 
the uses of the kitchen. But I will seriously 
mention some of the studies fundamental to the 
higher departments of this science; a man may be 
a good practical chemist perhaps without possessing 
them, but he never can become a great chemical 
philosopher. The person who wishes to under¬ 
stand the higher departments of chemistry, or to 
pursue them in their most interesting relations to 
the economy of nature, ought to be well grounded 
in elementary mathematics; he will oftener have to 
refer to arithmetic than algebra, and to algebra 
than to geometry. But all these sciences lend 
their aid to chemistry; arithmetic, in determining 
the proportions of analytical results, and the relative 



264 


DIALOGUE V. 


weights of the elements of bodies; algebra, in 
ascertaining the laws of the pressure of elastic 
fluids, the force of vapour as dependent upon 
temperature, and the effects of masses and surfaces 
on the communication and radiation of heat. 
The applications of geometry are principally limited 
to the determination of the crystalline forms of 
bodies, which constitute the most important type 
of their nature, and often offer useful hints for 
analytical researches respecting their composition. 
The first principles of natural philosophy, or 
general physics, ought not to be entirely unknown 
to the chemist. As the most active agents are 
fluids, elastic fluids, heat, light, and electricity, he 
ought to have a general knowledge of mechanics, 
hydronamics, pneumatics, optics and electricity. 
Latin and Greek among the dead, and Trench 
among the modern languages, are necessary; and, 
as the most important after Trench, German and 
Italian. In natural history and in literature, what 
belongs to a liberal education, such as that of our 
universities, is all that is required; indeed a young 



THE CHEMICAL PHILOSOPHER. 


265 


man who has performed the ordinary course of 
college studies, which are supposed fitted for 
common life and for refined society, has all the 
preliminary knowledge necessary to commence the 
study of chemistry. The apparatus essential to the 
modern chemical philosopher is much less bulky 
and expensive than that used by the ancients. An 
air pump, an electrical machine, a voltaic battery 
(all of which may be upon a small scale), a blow¬ 
pipe apparatus, a bellows and forge, a mercurial 
and water gas apparatus, cups and basins of 
platinum and glass, and the common reagents of 
chemistry, are what are required. All the imple¬ 
ments absolutely necessary may be carried in a 
small trunk; and some of the best and most 
refined researches of modern chemists have been 
made by means of an apparatus which might with 
ease be contained in a small travelling carriage, 
and the expense of which is only a few pounds. 
The facility with which chemical inquiries are car¬ 
ried on, and the simplicity of the apparatus, offer 
additional reasons, to those I have already given, 



266 


DIALOGUE V. 


for the pursuit of this science. It is not injurious 
to the health: the modern chemist is not like the 
ancient one, who passed the greater part of his 
time exposed to the heat and smoke of a furnace, 
and the unwholesome vapours of acids and alkalies 
and other menstrua, of which, for a single experi¬ 
ment, he consumed several pounds. His processes 
may be carried on in the drawing-room; and some 
of them are no less beautiful in appearance than 
satisfactory in their results. It was said by an 
author belonging to the last century, of alchemy, 
“ that its beginning was deceit, its progress labour, 
and its end beggary.” It may be said of modern 
chemistry, that its beginning is pleasure, its progress 
knowledge, and its objects truth and utility. I 
have spoken of the scientific attainments necessary 
for the chemical philosopher: I will say a few 
words of the intellectual qualities necessary for 
discovery, or for the advancement of the science. 
Amongst them patience, industry, and neatness 
in manipulation, and accuracy and minuteness, in 
observing and registering the phenomena which 



THE CHEMICAL PHILOSOPHER. 


267 


occur, are essential. A steady hand and a quick 
eye are most useful auxiliaries : but there have 
been very few great chemists who have preserved 
these advantages through life; for the business of 
the laboratory is often a service of danger, and the 
elements, like the refractory spirits of romance, 
though the obedient slave of the magician, yet 
sometimes escape the influence of his talisman and 
endanger his person. Both the hands and eyes of 
others, however, may be sometimes advantageously 
made use of. By often repeating a process or an 
observation, the errors connected with hasty 
operations or imperfect views are annihilated; and, 
provided the assistant has no preconceived notions 
of his own, and is ignorant of the object of his 
employer in making the experiment, his simple and 
bare detail of facts will often be the best foundation 
for an opinion. With respect to the higher 
qualities of intellect necessary for understanding 
and developing the general laws of the science, the 
same talents, I believe, are required as for making 
advancement in every other department of human 




268 


DIALOGUE V. 


knowledge. I need not be very minute. The 
imagination must be active and brilliant in seeking 
analogies; yet entirely under the influence of the 
judgment in applying them. The memory must 
be extensive and profound; rather, however, calling 
up general views of things than minute trains of 
thought. The mind must not be like an encyclo¬ 
paedia, a burthen of knowledge, but rather a critical 
dictionary which abounds in generalities, and points 
out where more minute information may be obtained. 
In detailing the results of experiments and in 
giving them to the world, the chemical philosopher 
should adopt the simplest style and manner: he 
will avoid all ornaments as something injurious to 
his subject, and should bear in mind the saying of 
the first king of Great Britain respecting a sermon 
which was excellent in doctrine but overcharged 
with poetical allusions and figurative language, 
"that the tropes and metaphors of the speaker 
were like the brilliant wild flowers in a field of corn, 
very pretty, but which did very much hurt the 
corn." In announcing even the greatest and 



THE CHEMICAL PHILOSOPHER. 


269 


most important discoveries, the true philosopher 
will communicate his details with modesty and 
reserve : he will rather be a useful servant of the 
public, bringing forth a light from under his cloak 
when it is needed in darkness, than a charlatan 
exhibiting fireworks and having a trumpeter to 
announce their magnificence. I see you are 
smiling, and think what I am saying in bad taste; 
yet notwithstanding, I will provoke your smiles 
still farther by saying a word or two on his other 
moral qualities. That he should be humble-minded, 
you will readily allow, and a diligent searcher after 
truth, and neither diverted from this great object 
by the love of transient glory or temporary popu¬ 
larity, looking rather to the opinion of ages, than 
to that of a day, and seeking to be remembered 
and named rather in the epochas of historians than 
in the columns of newspaper writers or journalists. 
He should resemble the modern geometricians in 
the greatness of his views and the profoundness of 
his researches, and the ancient alchemists in 
industry and piety. I do not mean that he should 



270 


DIALOGUE V. 


affix written prayers and inscriptions of recom¬ 
mendations of his processes to Providence, as was 
the custom of Peter Wolfe,—who was alive in 
my early days; but his mind should always be 
awake to devotional feeling; and in contemplating 
the variety and the beauty of the external world, 
and developing its scientific wonders, he will 
always refer to that Infinite Wisdom, through whose 
beneficence he is permitted to enjoy knowledge. 
And, in becoming wiser, he will become better; he 
will rise at once in the scale of intellectual and 
moral existence; _ his increased sagacity will be 
subservient to a more exalted faith, and in pro¬ 
portion as the veil becomes thinner through which 
he sees the causes of things, he will admire more 
and more the brightness of the divine fight by 
which they are rendered visible. 



DIALOGUE THE SIXTH. 


POLA, OR TIME. 

During our stay in Illyria, I made an excursion 
by water witli the Unknown—my preserver now 
become my friend, and Eubathes to Pola in Istria. 
We entered the harbour of Pola in a filucca, when 
the sun was setting ; and I know no scene more 
splendid than the amphitheatre seen from the sea in 
this light. It appears not as a building in ruins, 
but like a newly erected work; and the reflection of 




















272 


DIALOGUE VI. 


the colours of its brilliant marble and beautiful 
forms seen upon the calm surface of the waters 
gave to it a double effect, that of a glorious 
production of art and of a magnificent picture. 
"We examined with pleasure the remains of the 
arch of Augustus and the temple, very perfect 
monuments of imperial grandeur. But, the 
splendid exterior of the amphitheatre was not in 
harmony with the bare and naked walls of the 
interior: there were none of those durable and 
grand seats of marble, such as adorn the amphi¬ 
theatre of Yerona: from which it is probable, that 
the whole of the arena and conveniences for the 
spectators had been constructed of wood. Their 
total disappearance led us to reflect upon the 
causes of the destruction of so many of the works 
of the elder nations. I said;—in our metaphysical 
abstractions, we refer the changes, the destruction 
of material forms, to time, but there must be 
physical laws in nature by which they are produced; 
and I begged our new friend to give us some ideas 
on this subject, in his character of chemical 



POL A, OR TIME. 


273 


philosopher. If human science, I said, has 
discovered the principle of the decay of things, it 
is possible that human art may supply means of 
conservation, and bestow immortality on some of 
the works, which appear destined by their perfection 
for future ages. 

THE UNKNOWN.—1 shall willingly communicate 
to you my views of the operation of time, philo¬ 
sophically considered. A great philosopher has 
said, man can in no way command nature, but 
by obeying her laws. And, in these laws, the 
principle of change is a principle of life. Without 
decay, there can be no reproduction; and, every 
thing belonging to the earth, whether in its 
primitive state, or modified by human hands, is 
submitted to certain and immutable laws of 
destruction, as permanent and universal as those 
which produce the planetary motions. The 
property, which, as far as our experience extends, 
universally belongs to matter, gravitation , is the 
first and most general cause of change in our 
terrestrial system; and, whilst it preserves the 



274 


DIALOGUE VI. 


great mass of the globe in an uniform state, its 
influence is continually producing alterations upon 
the surface. The water, raised in vapour by the 
solar heat, is precipitated by the cool air in the 
atmosphere; it is carried down by gravitation to 
the surface and gains its mechanical force from 
this law. Whatever is elevated above the 
superficies by the powers of vegetation, or animal 
life, or by the efforts of man, by gravitation 
constantly tends to the common centre of 
attraction; and, the great reason of the duration 
of the pyramid, above all other forms, is, that it is 
most fitted to resist the force of gravitation. The 
arch, the pillar and all perpendicular constructions 
are liable to fall, when a degradation from chemical 
or mechanical causes takes place in their inferior 
parts. The forms upon the surface of the globe 
are preserved from the influence of gravitation by 
the attraction of cohesion, or by chemical attraction; 
but, if their parts had freedom of motion, they 
would all be levelled by this power, gravitation, 
and the globe would appear as a plain and smooth 



POL A, OR TIME. 


275 


oblate spheroid, flattened at the poles. The 
attraction of cohesion or chemical attraction in its 
most energetic state, is not liable to be destroyed 
by gravitation; this power only assists the agencies 
of other causes of degradation. Attraction, of 
whatever kind, tends, as it were, to produce rest, a 
sort of eternal sleep in nature; the great antagonist 
power is heat. By the influence of the sun, the 
globe is exposed to great varieties of temperature; 
an addition of heat expands bodies and an abstrac¬ 
tion of heat causes them to contract: by variation 
of heat, certain kinds of matter are rendered 
fluid, or elastic, and changes from fluids into 
solids, or from solids or fluids into elastic sub¬ 
stances, and vice versa are produced; and, all these 
phenomena are connected with alterations tending 
to the decay or destruction of bodies. It is not 
probable, that the mere contraction or expansion 
of a solid, from the subtraction or addition of heat, 
tends to loosen its parts; but if water exists in 
these parts, then its expansion, either in becoming 
vapour or ice, tends not only to diminish their 



276 


DIALOGUE VI. 


cohesion, but to break them into fragments. 
There is, you know, a very remarkable property of 
water, its expansion by cooling, and at the time of 
becoming ice; and this is a great cause of destruc¬ 
tion in the northern climates, for where ice forms 
in the crevices or cavities of stones, or when water 
which. has penetrated into cement freezes, its 
expansion acts with the force of the lever or the 
screw in destroying or separating the parts of 
bodies. The mechanical powers of water, as rain, 
hail, or snow, in descending from the atmosphere, 
are not entirely without effect; for in acting upon 
the projections of solids, drops of water or particles 
of snow, and still more of hail, have a power of 
abrasion; and a very soft substance, from its mass 
assisting gravitation, may break a much harder one. 
The glacier, by its motion, grinds into powder the 
surface of the granite rock, and the Alpine torrents 
that have their origin under glaciers are always 
turbid, from the destruction of the rocks on which 
the glacier is formed. The effect of a torrent in 
deepening its bed will explain the mechanical 



POL A, OR TIME. 


277 


agency of fluid water; though this effect is 
infinitely increased, and sometimes almost entirely 
dependent upon the solid matters which are car¬ 
ried down by it. An angular fragment of stone, 
in the course of ages, moved in the cavity of a 
rock, makes a deep round excavation, and is worn 
itself into a spherical form. A torrent of rain 
flowing down the side of a building carries with it 
the siliceous dust, or sand, or matter which the wind 
has deposited there, and acts upon a scale infinitely 
more minute, but according to the same law. 
The buildings of ancient Borne have not only been 
liable to the constant operation of the rain courses, 
or minute torrents produced by rains, but even the 
Tiber, swollen with floods of the Sabine mountains 
and the Appennines, has often entered into the 
city, and a winter seldom passes away in which the 
area of the Pantheon has not been filled with 
water, and the reflection of the cupola seen in a 
smooth lake below. The monuments of Egypt are 
perhaps the most ancient and permanent of those 
belonging to the earth, and in that country rain is 




278 


DIALOGUE VI. 


almost unknown. And all the causes of degrada¬ 
tion connected with the agency of water act more 
in the temperate climates than in the hot ones, and 
most of all in those countries where the inequalities 
of temperature are greatest. The mechanical 
effects of air are principally in the action of winds 
in assisting the operation of gravitation, and in 
abrading by dust, sand, stones, and atmospheric 
water. These effects, unless it be in the case of a 
building blown down by a tempest, are imper¬ 
ceptible in days, or even years; yet a gentle current 
of air carrying the siliceous sand of the desert, or 
the dust of a road, for ages against the face of a 
structure, must ultimately tend to injure it, for with 
infinite or unlimited duration, an extremely small 
cause will produce a very great effect. The 
mechanical agency of electricity is very limited; 
the effects of lightning have, however, been 
witnessed, even in some of the great monuments 
of antiquity, the Colosseum at Rome, for instance; 
and only last year, in a violent thunder storm, some 
of the marble, I have been informed, was struck 



POL A, OR TIME. 


279 


from the top of one of the arches in this building, 
and a perpendicular rent made, of some feet in 
diameter. But the chemical effects of electricity, 
though excessively slow and gradual, yet are much 
more efficient in the great work of destruction. It 
is to the general chemical doctrines of the changes 
produced by this powerful agent that I must now 
direct your especial attention. 

EUB. —Would not the consideration of the 
subject have been more distinct, and your explana¬ 
tions of the phenomena more simple, had you 
commenced by dividing the causes of change into 
mechanical and chemical,—if you had first 
considered them separately, and then their joint 
effects ? 

THE UNKNOWN. —The order I have adopted is 
not very remote from this. But I was perhaps 
wrong in treating first of the agency of gravitation, 
which owes almost all its powers to the operation of 
other causes. In consequence of your hint, I shall 
alter my plan a little, and consider first the 
chemical agency of water, then that of air, and 



280 


DIALOGUE VI. 


lastly that of electricity. In every species of 
chemical change, temperature is concerned. But 
unless the results of volcanos and earthquakes be 
directly referred to this power, it has no chemical 
effect in relation to the changes ascribed to time, 
simply considered as heat, but its operations, which 
are the most important belonging to the terrestrial 
cycle of changes, are blended with, or bring into 
activity, those of other agents. One of the most 
distinct and destructive agencies of water depends 
upon its solvent powers, which are usually greatest 
when its temperature is highest. Water is capable 
of dissolving, in larger or smaller proportions, 
most compound bodies, and the calcareous and 
alkaline elements of stones are particularly liable 
to this kind of operation. When water holds in 
solution carbonic acid, which is always the case 
when it is precipitated from the atmosphere, its 
power of dissolving carbonate of lime is very much 
increased, and in the neighbourhood of great cities, 
where the atmosphere contains a large proportion 
of this principle, the solvent powers of rain upon 



POL A, OR TIME. 


281 


the marble exposed to it must be greatest. 
Whoever examines the marble statues in the 
British Museum, which have been removed from 
the exterior of the Parthenon, will be convinced 
that they have suffered from this agency; and an 
effect distinct in the pure atmosphere and temperate 
climate of Athens, must be upon a higher scale in 
the vicinity of other great European cities, where 
the consumption of fuel produces carbonic acid in 
large quantities. Metallic substances, such as 
iron, copper, bronze, brass, tin and lead, whether 
they exist in stones, or are used for support or 
connexion in buildings, are liable to be corroded by 
water holding in solution the principles of the 
atmosphere; and the rust and corrosion, which 
are made poetically, qualities of time, depend 
upon the oxidating powers of water, which by 
supplying oxygen in a dissolved or condensed state 
enables the metals to form new combinations. All 
the vegetable substances, exposed to water and air, 
are liable to decay, and even the vapour in the air 
attracted by wood, gradually reacts upon its fibres 



282 


DIALOGUE VI. 


and assists decomposition, or enables its elements 
to take new arrangements. Hence it is that none 
of the roofs of ancient buildings more than 1000 
years old remain, unless it be such as are 
constructed of stone, as those of the Pantheon 
of Rome and the tomb of Theodoric at Ravenna, 
the cupola of which is composed of a single block 
of marble. The pictures of the Greek masters, 
which were painted on the wood of the abies, or 
pine of the Mediterranean, likewise, as we are 
informed by Pliny, owed their destruction not to a 
change in the colours, not to the alteration of the 
calcareous ground on which they were painted, but 
to the decay of the tablets of wood on which the 
intonaco or stucco was laid. Amongst the 
substances employed in building, wood, iron, tin 
and lead are most liable to decay from the 
operation of water; then marble, when exposed to 
its influence in the fluid form; brass, copper, 
granite, sienite and porphyry are more durable. 
But, in stones, much depends upon the peculiar 
nature of their constituent parts. When the 



POL A, OR TIME. 


283 


feldspar of the granite rocks contains little alkali 
or calcareous earth, it is a very permanent stone; 
but, when in granite, porphyry or sienite, either 
the feldspar contains much alkaline matter, or the 
mica, schorl or hornblende much protoxide of iron, 
the action of water containing oxygen and carbonic 
acid on the ferruginous elements tends to produce 
the disintegration of the stone. The red granite, 
black sienite, and red porphyry of Egypt, which are 
seen at Home in obelisks, columns and sarcophagi, 
are amongst the most durable compound stones; 
but, the grey granites of Corsica and Elba are 
extremely liable to undergo alteration, — the 
feldspar contains much alkaline matter and the 
mica and schorl much protoxide of iron. A 
remarkable instance of the decay of granite may 
be seen in the hanging tower of Pisa: whilst the 
marble pillars in the basement remain scarcely 
altered, the granite ones have lost a considerable 
portion of their surface, which falls off continually 
in scales, and exhibits every where stains from the 
formation of peroxide of iron. The kaolin, of 



284 


DIALOGUE VI. 


clay, used in most countries for the manufacture 
of fine porcelain or china, is generally produced 
from the feldspar of decomposing granite, in which 
the cause of decay is the dissolution and separation 
of the alkaline ingredients. 

EUB. —I have seen serpentines, basalts, and 
lavas, which internally were dark, and which from 
their weight, I should suppose, must contain oxide 
of iron, superficially brown or red and decomposing. 
Undoubtedly this was from the action of water 
impregnated with air upon their ferruginous 
elements. 

THE UNKNOWN .— You are perfectly right. There 
are few compound stones, possessing a considerable 
specific gravity, which are not liable to change 
from this cause; and oxide of iron, amongst the 
metallic substances anciently known , is the most 
generally diffused in nature, and most concerned 
in the changes which take place on the surface of 
the globe. The chemical action of carbonic acid 
is so much connected with that of water, that it is 
scarcely possible to speak of them separately, as 



POL A, OR TIME. 


285 


must be evident from what I have before said; but 
the same action which is exerted by the acid 
dissolved in water is likewise exerted by it in its 
elastic state, and in this case the facility with which 
the quantity is changed makes up for the difference 
of the degree of condensation. There is .no reason 
to believe that the azote of the atmosphere has any 
considerable action in producing changes of the 
nature we are studying on the surface. The aqueous 
vapour, the oxygen and the carbonic acid gas, are, 
however, constantly in combined activity, and 
above all the oxygen. And, whilst water, uniting 
its effects with those of carbonic acid, tends to 
disintegrate the parts of stones, the oxygen acts 
upon vegetable matter. And this great chemical 
agent is at once necessary, in all the processes of life 
and in all those of decay, in which nature, as it 
were, takes again to herself those instruments, 
organs, and powers, which had for a while been 
borrowed and employed for the purpose or the 
wants of the living principle. Almost everything 
effected by rapid combinations in combustion, may 



286 


DIALOGUE VI. 


also be effected gradually by the slow absorption 
of oxygen; and though the productions of the 
animal and vegetable kingdom are much more 
submitted to the power of atmospheric agents than 
those of the mineral kingdom; yet, as in the 
instances which have just been mentioned, oxygen 
gradually destroys the equilibrium of the elements 
of stones and tends to reduce into powder, to render 
fit for soils, even the hardest aggregates belonging 
to our globe. Electricity, as a chemical agent, 
may be considered, not only as directly producing 
an infinite variety of changes, but, likewise, as 
influencing almost all which take place. There 
are not two substances on the surface of the globe, 
that are not in different electrical relations to each 
other. And chemical attraction itself seems to be 
a peculiar form of the exhibition of electrical 
attraction; and, wherever the atmosphere, or water, 
or any part of the surface of the earth gains 
accumulated electricity of a different kind from the 
contiguous surfaces, the tendency of this electricity 
is to produce new arrangements of the parts of 



POLA, OB TIME. 


287 


these surfaces. Thus, a positively electrified cloud, 
acting even at a great distance on a moistened 
stone, tends to attract its oxygeneous or acidiform 
or acid ingredients, and a negatively electrified 
cloud has the same effect upon its earthy, alkaline, 
or metallic matter; and the silent and slow opera¬ 
tion of electricity is much more important in the 
economy of nature than its grand and impressive 
operation in lightning and thunder. The chemical 
agencies of water and air are assisted by those of 
electricity; and their joint effects, combined with 
those of gravitation and the mechanical ones I 
first described, are sufficient to account for the 
results of time. But the physical powers of nature 
in producing decay are assisted likewise by certain 
agencies or energies of organised beings. A polished 
surface of a building, or a statue, is no sooner 
made rough from the causes that have been 
mentioned, than the seeds of lichens and mosses, 
which are constantly floating in our atmosphere, 
make it a place of repose, grow and increase, and 
from their death, their decay and decomposition. 



288 


DIALOGUE VI. 


carbonaceous matter is produced, and at length a 
soil is formed, in which grass can fix its roots. 
In the crevices of walls, where this soil is washed 
down, even the seeds of trees grow; and gradually 
as a building becomes more ruined, ivy and other 
parasitical plants cover it. Even the animal creation 
lends its aid in the process of destruction, when 
man no longer labours for the conservation of his 
works. The fox burrows amongst ruins, bats and 
birds nestle in the cavities in walls, the snake and 
the lizard likewise make them their habitation. 
Insects act upon a smaller scale, but by their 
united energies sometimes produce great effect; 
the ant, by establishing her colony and forming her 
magazines, often saps the foundations of the 
strongest buildings, and the most insignificant 
creatures triumph, as it were, over the grandest 
works of man. Add to these sure and slow opera¬ 
tions, the devastations of war, the effects of the 
destructive zeal of bigotry, the predatory fury of 
barbarians seeking for concealed wealth under the 
foundations of buildings and tearing from them 



POL A, OR TIME. 


289 


every metallic substance,—and it is rather to be 
wondered, at that any of the works of the great 
nations of antiquity are still in existence. 

PHIL —Your view of the causes of devastation 
really is a melancholy one. Nor do I see any 
remedy; the most important causes will always 
operate. Yet, supposing the constant existence of 
a highly civilized people, the ravages of time might 
be repaired, and by defending the finest works of 
art from the external atmosphere, their changes 
would be scarcely perceptible. 

EUB. —I doubt much, whether it is for the 
interests of a people, that its public works should 
be of a durable kind. One of the great causes of 
the decline of the Eoman empire was, that the 
people of the republic and of the first empire left 
nothing for their posterity to do; aqueducts, 
temples, forums, every thing was supplied, and 
there were no objects to awaken activity, no 
necessity to stimulate their inventive faculties, and 
hardly any wants to call forth their industry. 

THE UNKNOWN. —At least, you must allow the 



290 


DIALOGUE VI. 


importance of preserving objects of the fine arts. 
Almost every thing we have worthy of admiration, 
is owing to what has been preserved from the 
Greek school; and the nations, who have not 
possessed these works or models, have made little 
or no progress towards perfection. Nor does it 
seem that a mere imitation of nature is sufficient to 
produce the beautiful or perfect; but, the climate, 
the manners, customs and dress of the people, its 
genius and taste all co-operate. Such principles of 
conservation, as Philalethes has referred to, are 
obvious. No works of excellence ought to be 
exposed to the atmosphere; and it is a great object 
to preserve them in apartments of equable tempera¬ 
ture and extremely dry. The roofs of magnificent 
buildings should be of materials not likely to be 
dissolved by water, or changed by air. Many 
electrical conductors should be placed so as to 
prevent the slow or the rapid effects of atmospheric 
electricity. In painting, lapis lazuli, or coloured 
hard glasses in which the oxides are not liable to 
change, should be used, and should be laid on 




POL A, OR TIME. 


291 


marble, or stucco incased in stone, and no animal 
or vegetable substances, except pure carbonaceous 
matter, should be used in the pigments, and none 
should be mixed with the varnishes. 

EJJB .— Yet, when all is done, that can be done, 
in the work of conservation, it is only producing 
a difference in the degree of duration. And from 
the statements that our friend has made it is 
evident that none of the works of a mortal being 
can be eternal, as none of the combinations of a 
limited intellect can be infinite. The operations 
of nature, when slow, are no less sure; however 
man may, for a time, usurp dominion over her, 
she is certain of recovering her empire. He con¬ 
verts her rocks, her stones, her trees into forms of 
palaces, houses and ships. He employs the metal 
found in the bosom of the earth as instruments of 
power, and the sands and clays which constitute 
its surface as ornaments and resources of luxury. 
He imprisons air by water, and tortures water by 
fire to change or modify or destroy the natural 
forms of things. But, in some lustrums, his works 



292 


DIALOGUE VI. 


begin to change! in a few centuries they decay 
and are in ruins ; and, his mighty temples, framed 
as it were for immortal and divine purposes, his 
bridges formed of granite and ribbed with iron, his 
walls for defence, and the splendid monuments 
by which he has endeavoured to give eternity 
even to his perishable remains, are gradually 
destroyed. These structures, which have resisted 
the waves of the ocean, the tempests of the 
sky and the stroke of the lightning, shall yield 
to the operation of the dews of heaven, of 
frost, rain, vapour, and imperceptible atmospheric 
influences. As the worm devours the lineaments 
of his mortal beauty, so the lichens and the moss 
and the most insignificant plants shall feed upon 
his columns and his pyramids, and the most 
humble and insignificant insects shall undermine 
and sap the foundations of his colossal works, 
and make their habitations amongst the ruins of 
his palaces and the falling seats of his earthly 
glory. 

PIIIL. —Your history of the laws of the inevitable 



POL A, OR TIME. 


293 


destruction of material forms recalls to my memory 
our discussion at Adelsberg. The changes of the 
material universe are in harmony with those which 
belong to the human body, and which you suppose 
to be the frame or machinery of the sentient 
principle. May we not venture to imagine, that 
the visible and tangible world, with which we are 
acquainted by our sensations, bears the same 
relation to the divine and infinite Intelligence, that 
our organs bear to our mind;—with this only 
difference, that in the changes of the divine system, 
there is no decay, there being in the order of things 
a perfect unity, and all the powers springing from 
one will, and being a consequence of that will, 
are perfectly and unalterably balanced. Newton 
seemed to apprehend, that, in the laws of the 
planetary motions, there was a principle which 
would ultimately be the cause of the destruction of 
the system. Laplace, by pursuing and refining the 
principles of our great philosopher, has proved, 
that what appeared sources of disorder, are in fact 
the perfecting machinery of the system, and that 




294 


DIALOGUE VI. 


the principle of conservation is as eternal as that 
of motion. 

THE UNKNOWN. —I dare not offer any specula¬ 
tions on this grand and awful subject. We can 
hardly comprehend the cause of a simple atmo¬ 
spheric phenomenon, such as the fall of a heavy 
body from a meteor; we cannot^even embrace in 
one view the millionth part of the objects surround¬ 
ing us, and yet, we have the presumption to reason 
upon the infinite universe, and the eternal Mind by 
which it was created and is governed. On these 
subjects, I have no confidence in reason, I trust 
only to faith, and as far as we ought to inquire, we 
have no other guide but revelation. 

PHIL .— I agree with you, that whenever we 
attempt metaphysical speculations we must begin 
with a foundation of faith. And, being sure from 
revelation, that God is omnipotent and omnipresent, 
it appears to me no improper use of our faculties, 
to trace even in the natural universe, the acts of 
his power and the results of his wisdom, and to 
draw parallels from the infinite to the finite mind. 



POL A, OR TIME. 


295 


Remember we are taught that man was created in 
the image of God, and I think it cannot be doubted, 
that, in the progress of society, man has been 
made a great instrument by his energies and labours 
for improving the moral universe. Compare the 
Greeks and Romans with the Assyrians and 
Babylonians, and-the ancient Greeks and Romans 
with the nations of modern Christendom, and it 
cannot, I think, be questioned, that there has been 
a great superiority in the latter nations, and that 
their improvements have been subservient to a 
more exalted state of intellectual and religious 
existence. If this little globe has been so modified 
by its powerful and active inhabitants, I cannot 
help Blinking, that, in other systems, beings of a 
superior nature, under the influence of a divine 
will, may act nobler parts. We know from the 
sacred writings that there are intelligences of a 
higher nature than man, and I cannot help some¬ 
times referring to my vision in the Colosseum, and 
in supposing some acts of power of those genii or 
seraphs similar to those which I have imagined in 



296 


DIALOGUE VI. 


the higher planetary systems. There is much 
reason to infer from astronomical observations, 
that great changes take place in the system of the 
fixed stars; Sir William Herschel, indeed, seems 
to have believed, that he saw nebulous or luminous 
matter in the process of forming suns; and there 
are some astronomers who believe that stars have 
been extinct; but it is more probable that they have 
disappeared from peculiar motions. It is, perhaps, 
rather a poetical than a philosophical idea, yet I 
cannot help forming the opinion, that genii or 
seraphic intelligences may inhabit these systems, 
and may be the ministers of the Eternal Mind, in 
producing changes in them similar to those which 
have taken place on the earth. Time is almost a 
human word and change entirely a human idea; 
in the system of nature we should rather say 
progress than change. The sun appears to sink in 
the ocean in darkness, but it rises in another 
hemisphere; the ruins of a city fall, but they are 
often used to form more magnificent structures, as 
at Rome. But, even when they are destroyed, so 



POLA, OR TIME. 


297 


as to produce only dust, nature asserts her empire 
over them ; the vegetable world rises in constant 
youth, and, in a period of annual successions, by 
the labours of man, provides food, vitality and 
beauty, upon the wrecks of monuments which were 
once raised for purposes of glory, but which are 
now applied to objects of utility. 


THE END. 


LONDON: 

BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WIITTKHRIAR*. 




BY THE SAME AUTHOR 


SALMONIA ; OR, THE DAYS OF FLY FISHING. 

With some Account of the Habits of Fishes belonging to 
the Genus Salmo. 

Fourth Edition. Illustrated .ih Woodcuts. Fcap. Svo. 




































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